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Becky

A Smied Baby!

Posted on May 12, 2016

So, if you saw my post earlier this week, you know that this happened:

Woo!

This exciting, life-changing thing was both planned, and unplanned. Let me start by telling you that just like most of your life’s plans, pregnancy will not happen the way you expect it to. I was previously on the birth control pill for 4+ years to regulate my hormones, and not getting pregnant when I didn’t want to was a nice little bonus. Jeremy and I always knew we wanted kids, and started talking about trying for a baby shortly after our 2 year wedding anniversary. We continued to talk about it (and avoid getting pregnant) for another full year…because we were terrified of how HARD it is to raise a child. We’ve never made any joint major life decision quickly or without a lot of thought, I mean – we were together for 8 1/2 years before we got married if that tells you anything. So when it came to thinking about a baby, we spent months on end asking ourselves a million questions, like:

Are we ready?
Why do we want to have a child?
Can we afford to add to our family?
Can our relationship withstand parenthood?
Are we capable of raising our child not to be a stabby, demon-spawn hell baby?

These are all important questions, guys. After that year, we’d decided that we were as ready as we were ever going to be, and I quit the birth control pill. ~~And then we got pregnant!~~ And then we tried for over half a year, with no success. I wasn’t too surprised that it wasn’t happening because I knew it would take time for my hormones to regulate again after being on the pill so long. But by month 6, those creeping thoughts of “Is there something wrong with my body? Did the pill permanently screw up my fertility?” started, and I was feeling a lot of pressure. It became really stressful, and much less exciting than it was in the beginning. Somewhere in the middle of month 7, Jeremy and I had a conversation and decided to take a few months off, to take the pressure off, and avoid having a holiday baby since late October through Christmas is the busiest time of the year for him at work. I was so relieved.

…and also two weeks pregnant.

By the time I missed my period a few weeks later, I chalked it up to my hormone imbalance and stress at work but I *KNEW* it would show up any day. After being a week late, I *KNEW* I hadn’t started because I was stressing about not having started. 10 days late, I decided to end my stress by taking a test to confirm what I *KNEW*: that I wasn’t pregnant. And then, before I could even blink, two lines appeared.

My simultaneous thoughts in that moment:
How did this happen?!
Wait, what?
This isn’t following the plan!
Holy shit.
How in the heck did this happen?!
Yay?

All plans of telling Jeremy with this adorable card that I bought for when the time was right flew out the window when I ran downstairs, practically threw the test at him and started sobbing like an idiot.

Card by WrittenInDetail on etsy

Not like I envisioned it at all! It wasn’t that I was unhappy, I was just so, so used to not being pregnant that this was a COMPLETE shock. I wasn’t sure it was possible. I’ve talked to a few friends with kids who have confirmed that these feelings are normal, no matter how badly you wanted the child. It was also going against the plans we’d just made to wait until summer to start trying again – and if you have a type A personality, you know how thrown off you get when plans are spontaneously changed. I’m a planner! I’m a planner with a biomedical sciences degree, and I couldn’t figure out how this happened. (Hint: trying for a baby is how it happened. Science!)

Thankfully, it only took about a week to get over the initial shock and guilt that I wasn’t over-the-moon right away – and Jeremy was wonderful about reassuring me that this was going to be amazing, albeit a few months sooner than we’d planned.

Now that we’ve made it through our first few appointments, the first ultrasound, and I’ve gotten through the all-day sickness of the first trimester, we’re pretty excited! Baby Smied is due to arrive in late November, and we’ve pretty much settled on leaving the gender a surprise. We’re excited to meet this little one! Thank you to everyone who has called, emailed, and squealed their offers of congratulations. We definitely feel the love!

Pregnancy/Baby

A (belated) Mother’s Day Announcement

Posted on May 9, 2016

Hello, readers!

I’m sure you’ve noticed that my posts have gotten a little more infrequent than I’d like lately. I’ve been slacking, but not without a really good reason. We’ve been working on our biggest project to date these last few months:

Yep, you read that right, I’ve been spending all of my time and energy BUILDING A HUMAN FROM SCRATCH. And let me tell you, it’s pretty hard work. Like, completely exhausting.

BUT, I’m back! I’ve survived the first trimester (also known as 3 months of nausea-induced hell), and I’m feeling much more like myself again. Just wanted to give a little explanation as to where I’ve been, and share our exciting news! Stay tuned for more blog posts about what we’ve been up to, as well as pregnancy updates/favorites. Thanks for joining us on our journey to parenthood!

Home Improvement

This Old Kitchen (Progress) – Part I

Posted on May 6, 2016

When we moved into this old house, the kitchen was cosmetically in the worst shape of any room. Even our home inspector said it was ugly! And he was right. But when you have a room with character and good bones, you have a room with a lot of potential – our kitchen was no exception. I have big plans for this space, which include knocking out a wall – but that requires putting in a very expensive header that doesn’t fit in our budget just yet. So in the meantime, we’ve been focusing on small cosmetic fixes to save ourselves from cringing every time we walk in the room. I started rehabbing this space well before I started this blog, but we’ve made such great progress (and it still is a work in progress), that I felt it was worth showing some before/afters!

BEFORE:

These photos were taken straight from the real estate listing when we bought the house. There is a tan/pink/orange/green tumbled marble backsplash, gray laminate countertops, 1940’s cabinets with cheap country hardware, loose magnetic clasps, bent hinges, and a chipping paint job. The dijon yellow walls and vinyl flooring are just the icing on the (ugly) cake. Why, previous homeowners, WHY?! Just…yuck.

AFTER:

Still in progress, but such an improvement!
So let’s talk about how we got to this point.

Part I: Cabinet Refacing
Our cabinets are original, solid oak cabinets. I’m a big fan of Nicole Curtis‘ theory that if you have quality woodwork, don’t replace it! They seemed to be in great shape, and offered plenty of storage, they just needed a ~~little~~ lot of TLC. We removed all of the cabinet doors, took off all of the hardware, and numbered them so we’d know which cabinet/side they came from. We then stripped them down to the wood using Citrustrip chemical paint remover and a 5-in-1 tool. That last sentence sounds so easy-peasy, I know…but sweet jesus it was not a quick task. Stripping paint is seriously my least favorite job on the planet. I would rather deep clean a bathroom with a toothbrush than strip paint, and every time I take on a project that requires it, I get about 40% of the way in and say “I’m never doing this again!”. And then time passes, I forget about how much I hate doing it, and then take on another paint stripping project (example: notice the stripped door in the kitchen). I’m dumb sometimes.Anyways…the cabinet boxes themselves were in good shape, so we left those alone until it was time to prime and paint. When you have older cabinets like these, you should avoid sanding if you can, due to the risk of lead paint. After removing 6-7 layers of paint from the doors (in all colors of the rainbow), we gave the wood a good sanding with an orbital sander, giving it a once over with 120 grit, followed by 220 grit to give it a smooth surface ready for painting. We ripped 1/4″ birch plywood down into 2 1/2 inch wide strips with a table saw, and attached them to the doors with our brad gun to add some shaker trim. I put wood filler on all of the brad holes, but didn’t fill in the lines on the cabinet face because that would have gotten rid of the classic shaker look.

We then primed the doors and boxes with Kilz, and then did 3 coats of Benjamin Moore’s White Dove (my favorite white of all time) in Eggshell finish.

After letting that dry for a few days, we did 3 coats of Polycrylic Satin. When I think farmhouse, I think white and oil-rubbed bronze, so that’s the finish we went with for the new hardware. I also got matching half-moon pulls for our pull-out drawers, and faux drawer faces. We have semi-inset cabinets, so I got matching oil-rubbed bronze hinges with a 3/8″ inset to fit.

They look like completely different cabinets, and I LOVE them. So much more fitting for the space. If you plan on refacing, and work full-time, give yourself a good two months to get this done.

We also attached this bottle opener that we’d had laying around for a few years on the side, because it’s adorable AND functional. Jeremy made the small cap catcher box below it out of some of the leftover birch from the trim.

Tools Required:
5-in-1 Tool
Orbital Sander
Table Saw (we used one at Maker Works in Ann Arbor)
Air Compressor + Brad Gun
1/4″ Brads
Screwdriver (a drill is even faster!)

All in, the makeover costs were:
Birch Plywood: $30
Citrustrip: $12
Primer + Paint: $45
Topcoat: $10
Sanding discs: $10
Cabinet knobs: $30
Cabinet pulls: $11
Cabinet Hinges: $30

TOTAL: $178
Hiring a professional to reface/redo cabinets in a kitchen our size usually starts at about $1,000, which after doing the job ourselves, I totally understand those labor costs. Coming in at $178, I’m pretty thrilled at saving more than 80%!

What do you think? Part II coming soon…

Family

Happy Burphday, Murph!

Posted on April 29, 2016

April 20th marked the start of our cat Murphy’s 12th year on this planet, demanding all of the soft blankets, lap time, and treats. We don’t have kids of our own yet, so this little one is our fur child and we celebrate his birthday accordingly!

Let me tell you a little bit about this guy. We adopted him 5 months after we started dating in 2004, when we were broke college students. WHO DOES THAT?! We did, because in your early 20’s you always make really good decisions and this seemed like one at the time. (Reason: brains take a long time to mature.). We adopted him from the Kalamazoo Animal Rescue when he was just a scared, quiet little kitten.

Little did we know that he was part Ragdoll, which meant he would grow up to be the most talkative, friendly, floppy cat we’d ever meet.

Although we were dumb kids when we adopted him, I don’t regret it because he’s been with us for the entirety of our relationship, and we’ve all sort of grown up together. He’s our little buddy, and a really great cat most of the time (except for 5am when he’s tapping my nose, demanding food because he’s “STARVING”). If you’re interested in adopting, check out your local shelter. There are tons of cats out there just like Murphy, waiting for you!

In honor of Murph, and all of the shelter animals out there, we volunteer every year for the Humane Society of Huron Valley’s Walk & Wag 5k fun run. It’s a really unique fundraising event where you can run or walk a 5k with your pup, and all proceeds go to helping the shelter animals. If you’re interested in donating or signing up for the walk/run, go here. We hope to see you there in May!

For Murphy’s Birthday, we celebrated by giving him a “cake” crafted from all of his favorite foods:
Wet Food + Tuna + Cheese + Grass. Yum?

He didn’t even know where to start, but once he realized what it was made of, it was GAME ON. It lasted for about 2 seconds before he demolished it, and now he expects that same treat everyday.

For years, Murphy has begged and cried to be let outside. Unfortunately with his genetic makeup, he isn’t suited to be an outdoor cat. Ragdolls are too friendly and trusting of other people, which can lead to bad things happening to them when they’re left outside on their own. So as a compromise, we got him a harness so that we could take him outside under supervision. The instructions say that you should be careful to acclimate the cat to the harness indoors with “lots of praise, petting, and play”. But I’m telling you, once we got the harness on and set him outside, he was like:

Not. even. phased. He LOVES it, so I think we did pretty good with the gift this year.