A Long Time Coming

A long time ago, in a living room not so far away, I promised a redesign. It may have taken me a while, but that redesign I was talking about is finally here. It's not a minute too soon either. Although, I do feel inclined to say that there were serious reasons for the delay.

The most serious delay came due to the fact that I spent a solid six weeks enduring the joys of round-the-clock morning sickness. It was all I could do to force myself to eat a bowl of cereal (the only thing I could keep down, oddly enough), let alone focus my short attention span on anything resembling a redesign.  

Scoreboard
Procrastination: 0
Morning Sickness: 1

After the morning sickness decided to go it's merry way (around week 12 of my pregnancy), Shannon and I began the hunt to find a new apartment/house to rent. Frankly, the idea of living in a one-bedroom, shotgun-style home (even with a bonus room) with a newborn was not the most appealing. I had it in my head that we could find a nice place for a bit of an increase in rent. Suffice to say, the rental market is currently flooded with folks who have lost their homes due to foreclosure, and those individuals who haven't lost their property are looking to make a quick buck by renting just about anything they deem habitable. I find a lot of what other people deem habitable inhabitable. Therefore, after much searching and viewing and attempting to make a square peg fit into a round hole, we gave up our search for a new place. Instead of going the "easy" route and relocating, we've decided to flex our DIY muscles and attempt to make this house work for at least another 18 - 24 months. We figure, the Cupcake won't be big enough to get into any real trouble in the first two years, and we can definitely make this house work with a bit of ingenuity and determination.

Scoreboard
Procrastination: 0
Stress-Inducing House Hunt: 1

Once the decision to stay was made, you would think that life would decide to cooperate and quit being so testy. Alas, my personal life may have fallen into order, but my professional life kicked it into high gear. April is the equivalent of the Armageddon in my field, and I spent the vast majority of the month stuck in a sad, sad cycle of work, home, eat, sleep, work. It was non-stop until April 27, by which point, would you have noticed if I had update the design? No. You'd probably already moved onto bigger and better blogs. I wouldn't have/don't blame you.

Scoreboard
Procrastination: 0
Month from Hell: 1

Now, here we are, 26 weeks into pregnancy numero uno, and I just now got around to updating the old blog and giving her a facelift. Most of this month has been spent spending money at Lowes and figuring out how to turn bookshelves into walls. While it may sound thrilling, it's been exhausting. We love what's happening in the house - things are really starting to pull together in ways that I never really thought possible - but we're also trying desperately to get the vast majority of our cleaning, painting, organizing, and rearranging done before 1) the disgusting heat of Missouri summer decides to descend upon us with her oppressive nastiness and 2) I become so big and unlimber that I'm unable to be of any assistance whatsoever. At the moment, aside from not really lifting anything too heavy, I'm still able to assist in getting things together. A few more weeks, though, and I'm afraid the belly, the swelling, and the slow seep of third trimester tiredness may get the better of me.

Scoreboard
Procrastination:1
Home Renovation: 1

I'm going to go ahead and give myself at least one point in the procrastination department. I have had a few evenings while the hubs has been at work in which I could have focused on the redesign. Instead, I watched Season 2 of True Blood. I have to be honest and chalk that up to good, old-fashioned procrastination. So, at the end of the day, the Redesign Scoreboard looks a bit like this.

Final Scoreboard
Procrastination: 1
Serious Reasons: 4

With that being said, though, I've managed to find the time and the will to put the whole idea of a redesign into motion, and I'm pretty pleased with the current outcome. I'm sure, now that I have a handle on banner pixel sizes and all that goodness, that we may redesign once again when the Cupcake arrives in September. You know, between the sleepless nights, breastfeeding, and other assorted business that we'll be doing in the Casa de P. For the time being, I'm satisfied just have something a bit crisper (and pink) to call my own.

Be warned, though. This means that you're going to start reading a lot about baking and babies. And baking babies. Though not in an oven. You know, baking them in untero.