every two weeks

There was a moment in our marriage where an unnamed party was surfing Craigslist, and DEMANDING to spend $200-$300 for a crappy piece of composite furniture on which to place the baby’s changing apparatus and diapering supplies.

This person was irrational, screaming things like, “I’m tired of WAITING!!!! Can’t you just let me BUY SOMETHING and DO IT THE EASY WAY FOR ONCE IN MY MISERABLE LIFE?!?!”

Seeing the delicate state of the party, the marriage partner spent $50 on supplies and built the insane person a thing called a dry sink in two days.

This new nursery addition is made from real wood and unlike a “changing dresser,” will not need to be put on Craiglist or burned in a fire once the baby is potty trained.

Look how my little cubes of baby crap fit perfectly on the shelves!! And the changing pad snuggles in there juuuust riiiight:

I am sooooo going to paint this thing and shove it full of Pampers when I'm done here.

The doors for the dry sink are downstairs waiting on their h-hinges.

For three Sabbath Days, my parents came down to help us install the handrails and balusters on our staircase.

These innocuous-looking pieces of wood required some sort of magical elfin math, 60 beers, 14 hamburgers and the resilience of the 300 to install.

By the end of weekend three, we discovered that we had miscalculated slightly, and we would need to buy new balusters for half the staircase. I kept telling my parents that had they not been around to help us, we would have discovered this shortcoming about three seasons and 60 gallons of beer from the point we did.

Regardless, my parents were racked by guilt for the situation. So how did they respond?

They snuck into our house and finished the entire job while we were at work on Friday.

We came home to my ‘rents watching television on the couch. And this:

and this:

*insert heavy sigh of relief*

As you can tell, there’s painting and trim work left to finish up, but getting these devilish sticks and handrails into place brings more relief than I think childbirth will. Maybel is excited that she no longer has to worry about falling off the edge of the stairs for the third or fourth time.

ps – I have the best parents in the entire world.

Thanks mom and dad!

we've come a long way, baby.

memories ...

Jesus Christ may or may not have been recently praised. I’ll never tell.

Brad Stafford, Knox County’s premiere … uhh … plumber, fixed our sewage-backing-up-into-the-basement situation without digging up our entire yard or charging us thousands of dollars. He didn’t even get dirty.

Best of all, Seth and I will never have to finish the conversation we began about how deep a trench he could dig on his own without the sides caving in on him, leaving Molly Mae without a father figure in her life. God bless that do-it-yourself spirit of his. Bless it and then curse it. I’m not sure which.

The problem had something to do with gravel.

I do not understand it. I do not care to understand it.

I’m just happy that the situation is fixed. I mean, once again.

In other news, this only reinforces my plan to push our daughter into a trade. You cannot charge $100 per hour for your skillz as a journalist.

Three cheers for Home Ownership!

They are not working.

I guess I’m glad that after 12 years of apparent neglect, the drainage pipes picked November to flood the basement with sewage, and not, you know, like, January. That would’ve sucked worse. For me, anyway.

About a week ago, Seth was down in the basement, pouring bleach all over the floor and sucking up our … ummm … water waste into the World’s Second Toughest Wet/Dry Shop Vac in the History of Shop Vacs. I’m not sure why I was the one crying in that scenario.

We called Ed Sims, Knox county’s premiere septic tank emptier-person, and he immediately came out with his huge waste-toting truck and the World’s Toughest Wet/Dry Shop Vac in the History of Shop Vacs.

It appears as though the previous owners of our home misled us with some of their documentation. They SAID they pumped our tank before we bought the property in 2006, but according to Ed Sims, they actually just had the tank inspected. Clever. As far as we can tell, it had been 12 years since the tank had been pumped, which is slightly longer than the recommended 5-year time span.

You city kids will never have to know what the hell I’m talking about. Of course, you also have monthly water and sewer bills. I’m not sure which I prefer.

Ed Sims asked if our lines had been backing up, and when I nodded, he hooked this giant hose to our septic outlet about 75 feet from the porch, and it seriously sounded like there was devastating tornado inside our home.

We’ll never know what on God’s green earth Ed Sims sucked up out of our sewer lines into his magical truck of mystery.

“It could’ve been any number of things,” Sims told me. “No one will ever know.”

He told me if we had problems in 6 months or so, we should call him and he’ll recommend a plumber with a camera to investigate the lines.

Unfortunately, we started having problems in 6 days.

Brad Stafford is the plumber on call. He’s scheduled to make an appearance in Bangs in the next few days. I hope he brings good news.

It will be unfortunate if we have to dig a seven-foot-deep, 75-foot trench under our foundation and out to the septic tank to replace a decades-old clay pipe. That would be poor timing.

The internet said it can be a $5,000 fix, and that’s not good for the maternity leave savings. But we’re getting pretty accustomed to these thousand-dollar hits. We are good at adapting.

Plus, I have some laundry I’d like to get done. Being able to flush the toilet is also handy. However, I’ve heard you don’t have much time for showering after a baby comes, so we won’t have to worry about that.

I’m sure you’ll all stay tuned.

This is a painting I did called "Maternity Leave."

I am having a little bit of the pregnancy senioritis.

Every second of the day I’m like, “Maybe I’ll go into labor right now so that I won’t have to (insert various life obligation).”

I have a false impression that once I go into labor, I won’t have to pay another bill, attend another event, read another news article, organize another shelf, cross one thing off another never-ending list, etc. etc. etc.

We’ll just get to sit around with a tiny, cuddly person all day, right?

As a woman who was up all night before her wedding making the programs, I cannot handle the anticipation related to such a flexible deadline. Anytime between NOW and a month from now?! This is lame.

Of course, we’re not ready, but we’ll never be ready. Whatever that means. And all this anxiousness about being ready will have to just shut up once labor starts because, hey — there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’re  in labor.

Getting the baby out is going to be a long and painful bitch, but I feel like postpartum depression, sleepless nights and poopy diapers will offer a refreshing change of pace.

fyi, I have the best preacher’s wife EVER!

My dear friend Rebecca Padula (of Maybel: A Pig in Motion fame) spent some time Saturday with my gross, naked orb of a body, and she transformed it into something much more beautiful than it really is. “Demi Moore and Vanity Fair ain’t got nothin’ on us,” is basically the conclusion I have come to.

Check it:

You know that part on the yoga tape where they tell you to imagine yourself giving birth in an ethereal forest? This is what they mean.

She is so super talented that I think you should run out and get pregnant IMMEDIATELY just to have her wrap you in pretty fabrics and take your picture.

At a time in a woman’s life when she a.) has to be large, b.) has to be naked, and c.) cannot drink (my gawd!) it takes a special person to make mama-to-be feel comfortable in front of a camera. Rebecca made me feel totally relaxed, and she also turned the heat way up so that I wasn’t  chilly even though she was probably really hot.

look at that!

Looking at this photo was the first time I think I really saw myself as a mother. You cannot deny that there's totally a baby in there. And when it comes out, I might gaze upon it like that. Is this weird?

Rebecca took these photos LIKE TWO MINUTES AGO, but turned them around in time to frame some of them for the shower that the ladies’ at my church threw this evening. Again, with the blessings all around me.

There are some more risqué shots up on her site. Like, almost nipple. You know me. I’m not exactly bashful about my human form or anyone else’s for that matter. But I don’t want to embarrass anybody else, so I’ll sneak a link to your inbox. In the meantime, here are two more PG-13s for good measure:

This is what I imagine my face will look like just as the baby's head is crowning

bellilicious

Here is where you can find her online. Now get a bottle of wine and go make a baby for heaven’s sake.

Nine years ago today, on a Sunday morning just outside Athens, my sister, her friend, my college roommate and I probably should’ve died in a very terrible car accident.

Instead, we all were put back together again with a bunch of metal plates, rods and screws. Our driver, whose last name I’ve forgotten, suffered a broken nose and a large sack of guilt. I hope he’s put that down by now.  I’m pretty sure I heard he is a commercial pilot.

I hope the Lord does not regret the additional years he gave us.

What are you doing with your borrowed time?