Labor Day Happenings

The blog needs some work. As it is now approximately 95 degrees outside, I decided to at least change the snowy background. I will get around to the wintry header at some other point (or just wait for the next winter), but changing the photos of TJ will have to wait for another day. He's a hard one to replace.

Summer continues to be busy beyond belief. I empathize with all those folks moving, remodeling, having babies, changing jobs, or any combination of the above. There are not enough hours in the day. I promise to post updates on our bathroom project soon, along with all the other summer experiments. However, I've had a few requests for some pregnancy updates, so we'll tackle those first.

We were fortunate to get away for the Labor Day weekend for a quick trip back to South Dakota. We left Friday after work and immediately added another hour to our drive with dinner in the Gustavus Arboretum, our favorite detour along the way. 

We watched the sunset for awhile, but then the riotous ground squirrels and brave new first-years became much more interesting subjects.

Adam and I both forgot to get a tan this year. Maybe next year.

On Saturday morning, I attended a lovely baby shower in Mitchell hosted by Adam's mom Janice and sister Sarah and held at their church's fellowship hall. It was a co-shower celebrating both me and my sister-in-law MiKayla, who is due just three weeks after us. As the men were not invited, my dad decided to wear his best free T-shirt and work on watering the lawn. Adam spent his morning moving rocks out at his grandparents' place with his dad and brother. I definitely got the sweet end of that deal.

32 weeks pregnant...8 short weeks to go!!

I still remember my Mitchell wedding shower from nearly seven years ago, and many of those ladies were in attendance at the baby shower. It was great to see everyone again, especially since it's such a fun crowd. The blue table is for me, the pink table is for MiKayla, the happy hosts and pregnant ladies are below.

Chilling out at the Johnson farm after the stress of gift-opening.

We had time to take in several quick games of Kubb. This Scandinavian crowd loved it! 

Pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, and squash were in abundance, along with some very fleeting moonflowers.

Enjoy today's senior portrait.

The next day got off to a great start after Adam put his butt straight through my parent's ancient outdoor swing. It was probably for the best.

We tried to teach Cricket how to play frisbee, but then gave up and settled down for breakfast instead. Her retriever gene is not well expressed.

Back on the Johnson side, we checked out the color of this year's corn palace corn and then went for a walk through their prairie.

I typed "black and yellow spider" into Google to see what sort of beast was hanging out in the garden. Ironically, it is called a black and yellow garden spider. While I appreciate all that spiders do for the world, I can barely stand to even look at this photo. 

Do NOT try to conduct an image search. I had to have Adam close my browser window for me.

The sun was HOT and the light was BRIGHT. Otherwise, maybe this would have been an awesome photo.

Just one of many varieties of wildlife attracted to the plantings the Johnsons have created over the years.
(Although a quick scan through the game cam memory card certainly revealed a lot of human activity caught on tape!)

We brought TJ (well, his ashes) back to South Dakota. He absolutely loved running through the fields and just being free on the farm. We still miss him every hour of every day, even though we have so, so much to be thankful for. I wish he could have met our little one this fall, but he'll be there in spirit, always. He would have destroyed all the baby toys anyway.

Chaos!

The Johnson house is undergoing a little bit of chaos lately. Truthfully, it's become almost unbearable. I know there is an end in sight, but it seems we just keep adding to our projects list without removing any completed projects. It doesn't help that we're simultaneously working on home, auto, and family. Honestly, what's left?

No room in our home has escaped unscathed. Enter at your own risk.

The view from the kitchen into our bathroom.

Adam helped me prep the walls for painting. 

This is the best look I could get from him.

Some of us were more cheerful, even though our painting pants no longer fit.

We cheered up for carpet removal.

I know the wood floors are beautiful. I wished we could have kept them. Time, logistics, and budget constraints forced us back into carpet. At least we know our enemy for next time.

Enjoy this little chaos collage and be thankful you are not living in our home.

We have slept in all three bedrooms over the course of one week. Construction materials are being stored in our sunroom and in the garage (I now park on the street with the renters - the horrors!). The computer has been relegated to the living room, which now contains 9 chairs, 2 benches, closet doors (without a closet), and a sectional, along with everything that ever hung on any wall anywhere. Bedroom A is being stored in the dining room, Bedroom B is being stored in Bedroom C, and Bedroom C is where we are trying to sleep, alongside tiling supplies and Adam's homebrewing operation.

I hit rock bottom on Thursday, when we had to unexpectedly take our cat to the vet (she's fine - whew!). As I was leaving, Adam called me from the auto repair center to tell me that our Volvo was in the shop for the second time in two weeks (or approximately the 28th time in three years - however you want to look at it). Our contractor was working on our bathroom, I needed to prime and paint, carpet installers were coming the next day, and it was 94 degrees outside. I had my first mini-breakdown of the weekend.

Fortunately, carpet installation went smoothly, so we could finally check one thing off the list. I happily moved my dresser back into its new position and cried (mini-breakdown #2) when I saw how crooked our floors were. (The photo below is actually level; the dresser is decidedly not.) You take what you can get with an 1880s house, but this required yet another trip to Menards to pick up some shims.

I called my mom for mini-breakdown #3 (the Volvo, of course) and we decided to finally bite the bullet...

...and we bought a new car! 

Nothing about our current financial situation or state of mind would say that this was a good idea, but we had one hell of a weekend.

We got a very sweet deal on a Toyota Corolla, so we jumped on the offer. The 2014 redesign comes out in about a month, so they were just giving the 2013 models away, especially our particular car, which got an extra-special discount for sitting on the lot for over 80 days. As Consumer Reports put it, "The Corolla is a good small sedan, although it is rather bland." Also, it ranked as the most frugal car in its class over 5 years. After our more recent car experiences, bland and frugal were exactly what we were looking for. This car just barely squeaked in with cruise control, so you know it's going to be cheap to fix.

Enjoy the sweet pix and try to ignore the other mess of a car behind the shiny new one.

If you know anyone in the market for a used Volvo (not currently operable), let us know! We'll make you a great offer. It's a wonderful car! ;-)

In other good news, the flowers are blooming and the honeybees are back, even if I'm not around to witness them. (I miss gardening - even weeding! I'm so pale right now and the yard is a mess.)

Bonus good news: I only have 99 days to go before the arrival of our baby boy! That means we have 98 days left to finish our bathroom, get the bedrooms in order, and figure out what a pack-and-play is and whether we really need one or not.

Next weekend: tiling!!! (I hate home improvement so much.)

Cat Tricks

Since I lost my photography muse, TJ, I guess Pickles will have to stand in. She's not as photogenic as the dog, but she does have a few tricks up her sleeve. Unfortunately, you have to bribe her with treats, but she's a good sport.

Watch those claws! 

More Blue!

We just brought our new tub home from Menards. It was last year's model, so we thought we were pretty smart to score such a sweet deal. Until we removed it from its packaging...

Another blue tub!

I nearly had a heart attack right in the middle of our driveway. 

Thankfully, I was quickly informed that the blue is just the protective liner and the actual tub is white. What a relief! In keeping with the theme, however, I planted five blueberry bushes to replace our crazy dogwoods. The dogwoods were supposed to stay five feet tall and wide, but they grow nearly 12 feet every single summer. They had to go. I did a very last-minute prep job on the soil, so I'm a little worried how the blueberries will fare, but we'll see. I have a feeling that the rabbits will be a bigger challenge than soil acidity. At least blueberries are slow-growing. That will be a nice change.

Adam took care of the last of our flooring. See you, bathroom! 

(P.S. Someone came around and took our scrap pipes approximately one hour after we put them on the curb. For the life of me, I can't imagine the return on investment would be enough to justify hauling those heavy, disgusting, decades-old pipes around, but it's one less thing to worry about on our end!)

Our Second Blue Project of the Summer*

(*The first blue project currently in process until late October.)

Oh, what have we gotten ourselves into?

You remember Ye Olde Blue Bathroom? It's been a thorn in my side since we purchased our house - six and a half years ago! Even ignoring its (many) cosmetic flaws, it's always had a small variety of minor electrical and plumbing related quirks. (There is no vent, the sink faucet is always clogged, the toilet does not flush properly, the plumbing under the sink is comprised of plumber's putty and an ice cream bucket, the one electrical outlet has reverse polarity and is located about four inches above the main water source, the linoleum floor is peeling, the light switch is outside the bathroom and across the hall, and so on.)

There is nothing like a baby to spur those long-overdue home projects. So we're tackling the bathroom first (and we have about three other projects lined up before summer's end, too). 

  

We started small. Demo doesn't seem so bad when you're just removing cheap bath surrounds.

Behind the bath surround was sheetrock, then old lath and plaster, then original studs. And dust. Lots and lots of dust. And probably lead paint (Adam did the demo). The bathroom floor actually sits nearly an inch taller than the adjoining kitchen floor. The reason? Underneath the linoleum, we discovered - in order - plywood, sticky tile, hardwood, subfloor, original planks.

After removing the painted linen cabinet, we discovered that it really could have been worse. Honestly, I would have loved to have met the color-blind people that inhabited this house before us.

The view from my kitchen. This scene has not changed in weeks and is likely to remain well into August at the rate we're going. (Now is a good time to mention that we are not actually doing the bulk of this remodel ourselves. We are assisting where we can, which is generally demolition, cleaning, making hundreds of small and incredibly boring decisions, and purchasing obscure items from every single aisle of Menards and Lowes, even items from the scary back corners of Menards and Lowes that no one ever really ventures into.)

Working late into the night.

Hard to tell, but Adam is wearing a fine layer of insulation.

Time to call it a night. Refreshing gin and tonic for Adam, sweet blood orange soda for Nicole. Thus ends the first weekend of very hard work for two lazy bones.

20 Weeks

Whew...we made it to the halfway mark! And for those placing bets, little Baby Johnson will be a boy!

Adam and I really didn't have any intuition one way or the other (not knowing what to expect anyway), although we were both leaning approximately 52-48% toward boy. This has been a relatively relaxed pregnancy, especially compared to what came before, and I've felt more mellow and stress-free pregnant than non-pregnant. If it had been a girl, I think the double dose of estrogen would have sent me over the edge.

By the half-way mark, I had gained 8 pounds - half of it in popsicles - and decided to put the maternity pants into regular rotation. He started to kick one day shy of 17 weeks and has been living it up lately, especially mornings and evenings. Adam felt the first kicks on Sunday, Father's Day. Baby is reaching the one pound mark, and then things should really get rocking.

I'm still not a huge fan of ultrasound pics, but I had to make an exception for this guy. He's already cute as a button. 

I think we're blowing bubbles here, according to the tech.
It's absolutely amazing that you can see the spine, the stomach, the little nose, etc.

I counted, like, 18 toes, but we were assured that there are only five.

NSFW!

It will most definitely be a little boy.

This is my favorite pic. Check out that bicep! Adam says he already has a great frisbee arm. For about half the ultrasound, he had one arm behind his head, just hanging out. I have a feeling this guy is going to take after Adam. He's very chill.

Pink and blue cookies for work. My co-workers were split down the middle on what we were having, but everyone agreed on a cookie or two.