Probably More Words Than Necessary to Tell You About My New Desk

This is what my quaint little home office used to look like around here.

Aesthetically I liked it a lot but structurally that ladder desk had major ish.  I bought it almost four years ago for– no joke– less than $50 from Staples or Office Max something.  ”Sort by Price, Low to High” fo life.  I doubted it would survive The Great Move of 2011, but it lived on to see another trans-state move on top of that.  It’s basically the Vin Diesel of cheap Staples desks.  It could jump out of a flaming car off a cliff being chased by 10 U.S. Marshals and it would dust off its knees and be like AIN’T NO THANG.  But even though it was still standing against all odds, it was wobbly and coming unhinged and becoming not safe for me to work at with Frogson napping in his wrap against me.  And getting into my little workspace nook I’d have to suck in my stomach (DIFFICULT) and sort of inch my way to the chair without bumping the desk, because any little nudge made me cup my hand over Frogson’s head cause I was sure the desk was like HIDE YOUR OFFSPRING, I’M GONNA MAKE KNICK KNACKS RAIN FROM THE SKY.

SORRY FOR THE CAPS LOCK SO MUCH CAFFEINE.

So I took to Craigslist, like any good person does when their soul is jointly owned by the IRS, Sallie Mae, and the American Express corporation.  And that is where I found this little gem, sitting at a furniture dealer not far away.

This was a homemade concoction wherein someone had dismembered an old oak desk and placed this mosaic on top.  Yes, the thing is a hot mess but I was instantly in love.  Sometimes I have strange reactions like that.  It’s actually how Frogson’s real name came to be.  It was never on the list of boy names I liked, it’s kind of random, it has no family or other symbolic meaning… I just read it in one of those baby name books and I was like… that’s it, don’t ask me why but that’s what he was meant to be named.

So I told the seller I wanted it and freaked out all week that someone would snatch it up before we were able to make it there over the weekend.  Because surely a desk that cool would be coveted by all.  Instead we showed up to this little furniture boutique and they were like, it’s been here forever, we can’t get rid of the thing.  But it’s been a great conversation starter!

Conversation starter?! Was my taste way off on this? Was this like all those years where I had breakdowns at the Christmas tree farm that we needed to pick one of the freaky deformed trees from the bargain lot because nobody else would give it a home and IT WOULD BE SAD AND NEVER KNOW LOVE? Even Jeff took one look and was like THAT THING IS FUGLY.  You don’t understand, Jeff does not have opinions when it comes to this stuff.  I don’t even bother to show him things like this in advance, because he no curr and has no appreciation for the domestic refinery I bring to his life.  He spent many years living quite contentedly at what is surely one of the nastiest frat houses the Eastern seaboard has to offer.  So I was starting to panic and second guess myself.

Guess what, I like it.  I DON’T CARE I LOVE IT I DON’T CARE.

I was in agreement with my mom who suggested I paint the crazy blue trim to match the walls, so I think that tamed it a little.  I relocated the mirror thing from elsewhere in the house, and I went shopping in my parents’ basement for the green pot and faux palms (AKA from that thrift shop down the road).  I think it looks cool.  The patterns are supposed to clash, IT’S FUNKY OKAY? But I need you to comment on this post anonymously if you agree it’s heinous though.  It’s the only way I’ll learn.  Sorry again for the too much caps lock.

Hold On To Your Ovaries, It’s Nursery Time…

The frog nursery is complete! Wah! I’m only mad that neither our crappy 2008 camera nor the phone is doing the room justice.  I think it’s so much cuter in real life.  And I hang out in there all the time.  Not doing anything specific.  Just gazing like a creeper.

Uhh, let’s see.  Remember the dresser? I stripped the wallpaper and gave it a second makeover for baby.  Actually I’m now realizing it was kind of fugly before, so I think this is its best look yet.  Yay dresser.  Oh, and my clothes now reside in a $35 Rubbermaid thing from Wal-Mart that lives in the walk in closet.  My first act of mommy martyrdom!  The curtains are teal seersucker made by my Mom.  (Thanks Mom!) The crib I am ashamed to say is one of the cheapest that Babies R Us had to offer, but it was extremely well reviewed (including many veteran parents who said they bought some crazy expensive thing the first time around and found this to be just as good).  It really looks great though, and I like simple things anyway so… Yay crib.

Feeding/snuggling nook right inside the door…and a cameo by the Sleep Sheep! (Thank you Auntie Michele!) (I love that thing already).

The room is super tiny and the chair cramps things a little more than I would have liked, but as I understand it babies are pretty obsessed with rocking so this needed to happen.  The afghan was knitted for me a long time ago by my Great Grandma.  She passed away when I was in college (at 102!).  Thanks Mom Mom!

The other wall…

The picture frames obviously need stuffed which will happen after his newborn pictures.  But I’ve been so OCD with the nesting that I needed them to just be on the wall in the meantime so it felt put together.  Previously, they were on the wall with just the stock placeholder picture left in them, which happened to be ballerina slippers.  Jeff, in an adorable men-bless-their-hearts kind of moment, was like “that’s not really what’s supposed to be in them, right?”.  Uhh no, I did not frame a picture of ballerina slippers with a text box that says 11×14 matted to fit 8×10.  “OK, cause I know Frogson is his own person or whatever, but we’re not putting ballerina slippers on his wall.”   (Again with the blessing of the heart).  Also up there are Jeff’s footprints circa 1983-1984 (ADORBS) that we had framed, and… a little name teaser for you!

Enough boring wall crap.  I always like seeing the behind-the-scenes guts of people’s rooms.  I repeat: I’m a creeper.

Tranquil Turtle! (Thank you Auntie Gracie).  Another thing I love already.  And some stuff for baby to play with when he’s stuck on the changing table.  Babies like that, right?

Let’s take a journey into the dresser contents…

YEP.  We’re cloth diapering like crazy hippie people.  Frogson, I hope some day you will look back and thank me for ensuring your excellent virility in adulthood.  For real don’t ask me anything else about cloth diapers though, because I pretty much 100% stole the system/product recommendations from my Earth Mother Idol, Emily at Oh Apostrophe. 

We’ve opted for the Platinum Deluxe Hippie Parent Package and are cloth wiping too.  (Again, thanks Emily!) What the heck, we had a surplus of wash cloths.  Why not.  So we have a spray for baby’s diaper region (tocks), and a spray to go on the diaps which apparently keeps them non-stinky.  (PLEASE WORK).  Pretty much my only parental goal right now is to not accidentally spray the baby’s butt with the wrong bottle.

Does everyone have a firm grasp of their ovaries? BABY CLOTHES ARE SO CUTE.  I didn’t even know how cute until now.  SO MUCH CUTENESS.

We’re ready for you, sweet boy!

(And one last shout out to all our wonderful friends and family who gifted us many of these fixings.  It does take a village!)

Nursery Sneak Peak

Almost ready for you, Frogson!

Not apparent from the pic, but the curtains are teal seersucker.  And the mobile is sea horses with googly eyes.  The cuteness.  It burns.

Baby Boy Bathroom

Two months and three weeks to go and we at least have little dude’s bathroom ready… progress! It is the cutest darn thing ever… in my mind at least.

See what I made for you, Frogson? As you are going through life always remember one thing: MOMS WHO TRULY LOVE THEIR KIDS SHOW IT WITH CRAFTS.  If you ever find out that some kid from your preschool class has a mom without a Pinterest account, know that his or her life is sad and devoid of all love.  That was sarcasm, but no I really am insanely proud of my little whale creation, which makes my uterus swell with girly joy.  OK I’ll stop now.

The nursery is still in progress but will be ready for a preview soon! MOM if you’re reading this… please desist and immediately return to the sweat shop/dining room to complete the curtains.  Move, woman! The internet waits with breath bated! (It’s cool, our relationship is… special.)

Old House Farewell

So I am like 6 weeks behind on this… but I couldn’t not pay tribute to our beloved house we just left!

I loved this house.  Love at first sight.  It was meant to be.  Everyone in DC knows the key to finding a gem of a rental is refreshing Craigslist every 2 minutes.  I happened to sign on about 30 seconds after this place was posted, and immediately emailed that we were extremely interested, when can we see it, please let me know if anyone tries to rent it before we’re able to see it… general creepy eager beaver stuff.  When we saw it and loved it, we did the second thing everyone in DC knows to do, which is to shove a check into the landlord’s face.  Usually I am leery about any behavior that could be interpreted as groveling, but the house and the neighborhood and the price point made me lose all inhibition.  This effer was ours.

Of course a bunch of other people had the same idea, and I got sad because it’s been my experience that rental wars usually end with me losing out.  Well I guess our competition was made up of bankrupt unemployed violent criminals or something, cause the two of us yahoos were the most promising of the bunch! WOO!

And now that we don’t live there anymore I can even show you the front… stalk away, all you internet creepers!

This was literally the minute we moved out of it… car and truck were packed, keys had been slid back under the door, we were disgusting smelly mid-move messes… but needed a few last pictures!

And here were some inside shots from the last time it was clean before I packed everything up.  It was teeny weeny and there was nothing to it… but I loved it so!

Somehow I missed a picture of this but you remember the writing nook…

Our petite little kitchen! Yea, see that space between where the sink ends and the fridge begins? That was the counter space! I actually kind of acclimated to it and never thought twice; I was also grateful it forced us to live kind of a minimalist kitchen existence.  (No toaster! No microwave! Some straight up Oregon Trail action, I know!).  Anyway, I am in heaven now with our new expansive counters and will never take them for granted.  Go hug your counters, everyone.

Heading upstairs…

The hallway upstairs was actually my favorite place in the house I think.  Since we only had 3 rooms and a bathroom, I went out of my way to give the hallway some character and make it its own little space.  Or I tried at least.  The runner up there was another favorite thing of mine (that we don’t have a space for in the new house… SOB).  Bummed I didn’t manage a picture of it; you can see a little corner below…

And lastly the bedroom…

That’s all there is to it! Sorry for the snoozefest, just wanted to document it officially.  It has a very special place in my heart.

Inventor Genius Level: Expert

So one first world problem the new house comes with is garbage… we are built on a steep hill with a walkout basement so the trash cans live one level down, and transporting bags out there means across the kitchen, down to the basement, go outside, lift nasty lid on trash can, get sprayed by nasty droplets of condensation as you close nasty lid, back across the basement, back up the stairs, track outside crap all over the carpet, go wash your hands.  WHINE.

Jeff remarked that there should be a way to just drop the trash off our deck (the door to which is in our kitchen and conveniently right next to the trash can).  I thought this was a most terrific idea, although when I excitedly told him tonight I had created such a system, he told me he was “just joking.”  PSSH.  He obviously underestimated how in touch I am with my inner Wayne Szalinski from repeated childhood viewing of Honey I Shrunk the Kids. 

Some may view this footage and suggest I add to the list “how much time you appear to have on your hands from being unemployed” but I will have you know that I am enjoying having more freedom to untap my creative energy.  See what an excellent publicity consultant I would make? HIRE ME.

New House Preview

As I indicated before, agreeing on a house across state lines was a-freaking-nnoying.  Picking out a place is also hard, isn’t it? Going in I said I had only one thing on my must have list– hardwood floors.  We have them now and I pretty much want to make out with them on a daily basis.  Two primary reasons:

A) Hardwoods are attractive.  If floors were people, hardwoods would be, like, Michael Phelps, and wall-to-wall carpet would be… I don’t know… Martin Short.

B) Germaphobe friendly! I get a sick delight out of cleaning the wood floors because you can see the grossness getting vacuumed up and scrubbed away.  Makes my heart pitter patter.  Carpet? Who knows what is or isn’t getting cleaned by the vacuum.  Can you ever truly trust a vacuum? I’ll let you ponder that.

In the end, the house that was right for us was chock-full of carpet.  Beige carpet.  From the window to the wall.  Till the… nevermind.  I made about 3 minutes worth of whiney faces/noises when this reality sunk in.

Then I did a very effective thing and I pictured what would happen if I tried to tell a group of poverty-level Bangladeshis about how hard life would be trying to live with carpets instead of hardwoods in my pretty little suburban house.  They would probably have either LOLed in my face or clubbed me senseless, depending on their mood that day.  I haven’t whined about the carpets since.  I highly recommend this reflection.

But I am still taking measures to make the house sexy like Michael Phelps, so this week was the Paint-a-thon as mentioned.  Here are some before and afters so far!

Living room:

Kitchen:

Bedroom:

The last picture is kind of crappy, but that’s sort of a plum on the walls.  I was just excited to take a picture of the pretty trees!

Now it’s back to DC for four (!) more days… tomorrow is transition session 1 of 2 with my successor at work, who in an awesome twist of fate is actually a good friend of ours! (Yo Maggie!) In all this hysteria it’s so nice to know my boss and colleagues are being left in terrific hands.  And then by this time next week we should be back here and all moved in… wagh!

Mobile Devices Need Love Just Like You and I

Let’s get one absolute truth out of the way: Pinterest is a devious, corruptive drug that will make you high on equal parts creative awakening (good!) and devastating, crushing feelings of inadequacy (good?).

That said, I do try to live up to the ideal by organizing my life as much as possible- not to try to keep up with the Pinterest girls but because I legitimately am a calmer, happier, saner human when my environment is simplified and orderly.  Clutter/mess/struggling to find stuff=doom/psychosis/apocalypse.

Our old cell phone charging solution was one such example:

“Solution” is a strong word because as you can see, it was in fact just a power cord plugged in behind our couch.  At the end of the day, we pulled it out from the gap between couch and wall to plug the stuff in; when we left for work in the morning, we shoved it back into the gap so Chooch wouldn’t chew it and meet the same fate as the cat from Christmas Vacation:

I wanted a so-called charging “station”.  Though all of them I found to buy online were either fugly or expensive.

Lead me, oh wise Pinners…

Holler! I could do that.

Here is the procedure: 1.  “Memory box” from Michael’s 2.  Drill small holes in the front for the little cords, 1 hole in the back for the fat power cord 3.  I scotch taped over the edge of the holes to make less shaggy 4. Hot glue washers on top.  Smarmy, barf-tastic couples portrait: optional.

The power cord plugs in behind, and now lives its days behind a beautiful purple paisley facade.  It’s a win for all of us.

I can’t tell you how happy this stupid lidded box makes me.  Never underestimate the power of a tiny detail to bring stress relief to your world.  No more couch-gap-shoving and battling with a condor nest of ugly cords.  If I am every really feeling down and overwhelmed with life, you can probably find me huddled in a corner clutching and rocking my charging station box.

Yay box! This project is linked up to the iHeart Organizing “Project Pretty”.  Girls- do you read this blog? You need to be.  Girl is AMAZING.  Again, I can’t promise reading it won’t make you feel inferior and pathetic, but amazing nonetheless.

Yours in purple paisley,
Becker Out