Project 21 of many. . .

Something so simple should not have taken this long. I guess that the new duration of my projects is a good indicator that I am indeed 39 and 3/4 weeks pregnant. Something tells me that projects are only going to take longer from here on out.

Waiting on baby

Our little one is due to enter the world in exactly one week. Despite gaining about 35 lbs and feeling something move around inside of me, I really do not feel pregnant. I cannot grasp the idea that in no more than 3 weeks I will be holding a precious little baby in my arms. It's fantastic. It's amazing. It's mostly unreal.

I know that genetically this baby belongs to Kyle and I. That we made it. I do not feel like that. I feel like I've just been blessed to bring someone into the world that was thought up in eternity. Someone created for eternity, for Someone who has loved and will continue to love for eternity. And though my body has essentially built this child, I feel like I've had less to do with it than I do when I tailor something. I know how to tailor a coat. In fact, given the right resources I could make you a coat all the way from the primary source. And when I was done with it, it would be void and without life (but not without form ;) ). I cannot tell you how I made this baby. Even if I were an expert on the matter of baby formation, there would still be things that I could not explain. Like amniotic fluid - nobody even knows where that stuff comes from.

I feel blessed. So many people have helped to make this baby possible, from words of encouragement to such generosity that I cannot even understand it. These things may not have directly "made" the baby possible, but have been a tremendous blessing and have really driven home the idea that God is always going to take care of us. All of this creates inexpressible joy, and I pray that I will remember this even in the worst of times.

. . . like, when I'm trying to push a baby out. :/ Until then, everything is ready waiting. The nursery is completed. The car seat is installed. The birthing pool is in the car. I even tried to set up my first appointment at the pediatricians today - they said I had to have a baby first. Go figure.


The closet. Complete with dresser/changing table, the pony that hung in Kyle's room when he was a baby, and a nice supply of diaper bags. . .


. . . and a cork wall with notes from friends and family.

Rocking chair and toy chest that Grandma Jackie refinished for us.

Crib with stuffed animals from friends and a cross-stitched blanket from Great Grandma LaVon.

Lots of great books that I cannot wait to read through over and over again.

Book that we wrote for the baby. I'm really excited about this one. Hopefully it will be a favorite.




Kyle thinks that this page is going to embarrass the baby. I say "bring it on!"


If you want to read the rest of the book, you'll just have to come visit us.

Bramble Tart with Cassis Cream

Kir. I love it. I wish I could drink it every night. Unfortunately, I have not been able to have one for about 8 months now. What this has done is left me with a bottle of creme de cassis in my refrigerator, that I've just been dying to use.
Yesterday afternoon I stumbled upon a recipe for a bramble tart with cassis cream and decided that this little bit wouldn't hurt me. This tart was so easy to make and it turned out deliciously! The recipe serves six, but I think it's more suited to 4 . . . or 1.

Pastry
2 2/3 c all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
5 tsp semolina (which I couldn't find, so I used 1 T whole wheat flour)
1 egg white

Filling
1 lb fresh blackberries (or you could use a mixture of berries. . .strawberries, raspberries. Peaches would be good)
6 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp creme de cassis
1 tbsp flour

Cassis Cream
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp creme de cassis
powdered sugar - I have no idea how much I used, the bag was almost empty, so I just dumped it in the blender.


Cut butter into flour and salt. Once it looks like bread crumbs, add the sugar and then enough cold water to form a dough. Chill for 30 minutes

Mix blackberries with 4 tbsp sugar and creme de cassis and flour

Preheat over to 400, place mixing bowl in freezer

Roll out the pastry into a large circle, leave the edges ragged. Sprinkle dough with flour. Pill the fruit into the center of the pastry so that there is a 2 1/2" margin around the edges. Fold the edges of the pastry to overlap and enclose the edges of the fruit. Close any gaps that you see in the pastry. Brush pastry with egg white and sprinkle the remaining sugar onto the pastry and berries. Bake for 25 minutes

In chilled bowl, whip cream until it begins to thicken, then add creme de cassis and powdered sugar until peaks are formed in the cream.

Serve tart hot with the Cassis Cream. It's also good chilled the next day :)

∞ The Adrian Carryall ∞

Just finished this diaper bag. Everything about it turned out the way I wanted. I love it when projects go this way. . . they seem few and far between lately.





Buy it here. . .

Project 18.4 of many. . .

∞ Crib Bedding ∞

Every part of putting this nursery together has taken me longer than expected, the bed skirt and bumper for the crib were no exception. The problem encountered with this project was not something I anticipated - though, in retrospect, I got my fabric at JoAnn's, so I really should have expected it. Long story short, this lovely woven fabric that I chose was not woven correctly, making the distance between patterns different. If you look at the bottom of the bed skirt you can see that one side hangs down longer than the other. Had I decided to make them the same length I would have had to cut off part of the pattern - which I think would have looked worse. I also ran out of fabric - which wouldn't have been a problem had the pattern been even on the fabric. I went back to JoAnn's, had the lady unroll the entire bolt of fabric and then I proceeded to measure the distance between each set of flowers - nothing measured what I needed it to, so the back of the bumper is made out of plain muslin. . . which no one will likely ever see, so I guess it does not matter.

This project has been done for about a month, but I couldn't post pictures until I got a mattress and sheet - which I finally picked up today. Lovely thing about the mattress - it was suppose to be $89, but I had a 20% off coupon. The lady at the counter was nice and gave me another 20% off coupon which I think was suppose to apply to the sheet I bought, but instead applied to the mattress, so I really got the mattress for 36% off, AND got to use a $5 off coupon on my $10 sheet. It was fantasitc! That would have never worked at Macy's. . .





. . . and I can already tell that that light switch right by the crib is going to be a problem in about 2 years.

Project 20 of many. . .

I reupholstered the chairs in the kitchen today. I have been needing to do this for about 2 years. I have been putting this project off because I honestly believed that I was going to build the infamous "breakfast nook." (and it will happen. . . ) Anyway as they say in Ever After, "We cannot have a royal bottom sitting on a dirty chaise, now, can we?" They were beyond embarrassing.

Technically I started working on these yesterday. I started sanding one chair and then had a panic attack because the idea popped into my head that they might be painted with lead based paint. Fearing this I ran to get a lead test at Home Depot (I really don't like that place, but Lowes no longer carries them), unfortunately the test had somehow dried up (again, don't like that place), so the project got put on halt. Today I got another lead test and it came back negative and so with a sigh of relief I carried on.

This is actually the third life for these chairs. My parents inherited them from my aunt and uncle - at that point they were a lovely gray vinyl color. When I went to college Lisa and I decided to recover them for our duplex. I really have no clue how they got so dirty, it's like they were covered in mud and then left out in the rain (well, that, and also used as ladders to paint with. . . ). I think I will spray these with scotch guard to preserve them a bit better. Total cost to redo each chair was about $7 - a whole lot cheaper than buying new chairs :)

Project 18.3 of many. . .

∞ Closet Shelf ∞
My aunt Doreen and cousin Lindsay gave us a Lowes Gift card at the baby shower that my mom and Grandmumz hosted while we were in Missouri. I knew exactly what to do with it.

When we painted the baby's room I took the doors off of the closet, took the old shelving out (metal wire) and painted the inside. My idea was to create a space to put a small chest of drawers in, that could also serve as a changing table. I also wanted to put a new shelf in. Needless to say this project took longer than I expected. Turns out the walls of the closet measure differently at the base of the floor than where I put the shelves up at, so the shelf turned out a little small, luckily this is hidden by the support that I used for the shelf. Then my boards were warped - I figured this would happen when I was looking at lumber, but then everything seemed straight enough so I put the idea out of my mind and pushed on, figuring I could easily nail the shelf to the support and everything would turn out fine - which would have worked, except the shelf barely covers the support on the sides, so I couldn't really nail it down. Half a container of putty later and another coat of paint I called it done.

I think it turned out quite nicely. I think that if we have a girl I'll put a bar up under the shelf to hang her dresses on . . . otherwise, we'll go without. Might also put some more little shelves up along the sides of the closet.