Notes from the Blue House

After shopping and shopping and shopping and...you get the idea...I couldn't find a light fixture that I loved for the guest room. I think we can all agree that the ugly 90's ceiling fan has to go. buh-bye ugly! Now what-the-what could I put in it's place? I'd all but given up and and spent the $80 necessary to bring home this souless and overpopular Ikea fixture because while it may be souless it's still super duper cute. Well, as luck would have it, my mom found a lovely new light fixture for her dining room and wouldn't be needing the old chandelier any longer. Score! I'll take it! 'FREE' is definately my favourite 4 letter 'F' word.  I brought the bronze bad boy home, bought a can of spray paint and voila! Here's a before and after for you. BEFORE AFTER I've also made some other additions to the room to finish it off-new sheets in a geometric pattern, art for the wall opposite the bed, a lamp, and the curtain panels...

A girlfriend of mine is preggers and I couldn't possibly be more excited for her. She's not a naive teenager; she's an intelligent, capable and, most importantly, hilarious woman. I know her sense of humour will serve her well when she finds herself smeared with baby poop someday soon. While I'm sure she's not going into this next chapter of her life blind, I think that none of us can really anticipate how greatly life will change once this teeny weeny person moves into your house. During pregnancy, there's no shortage of strangers offering you congratulations, advice and tidbits of wisdom. I've actually had a stranger at Home Depot put her face on my belly to talk to Simon in this horrendously cutesy voice. I could feel her breath through my sweater! yuck. There is nothing like a bump to draw the attention and well-meaning advice of strangers. This advice ranges from the typical crap like: "start putting pablum in the bottle right away to get more slee...