Life Right Now: September 5, 2015

 

From where I sit

Life right now is late nights and early mornings. It's extra strong coffee in extra big cups. It's bright lipstick and dark eyes. It's wearing mom-sandals unironically. It's dog-earred history books and baskets of laundry. It's dog hair on floors that never seems to go away.

Life right now is sticky hands and slobbery faces. It's a fast crawl from one side of the room to the other. It's strumming ukulele strings and knocking down block towers. It's questions of "what's dis?" and pointing at everything in sight. It's silly songs and belly laughs. It's blowing kisses and waving backwards.

Life right now is off-recipe meals with sometimes off tastes. It's late dinners with a special guy. It's eggs cooked every way imaginable. It's watching cooking shows and taking notes. It's realizing that practice really does make perfect. It's a slight bit of pride with each passing meal. 

Life right now is a little hectic, but life right now is pretty great. 

-Lindsay

Welcome Home

How far will Bryce and I go for a joke?

Turns out, pretty far.

I've mentioned quite a bit on here, on Facebook, and in person that we have been looking at houses and getting things organized in case we found something. What we haven't told everyone yet is that we've bought one and have been under contract for close to a month. Tuesday, March 31st, was our closing date.

Here it is in all its home-y splendor

I had fallen in love with this wonderful, quaint house in an area technically in Waterloo, Illinois called New Hanover.  I kept showing it to Bryce to see if he liked it, but he wasn't sure about being so far away from town. He then pointed out something I hadn't realized: our friends, Jeannie and Evan,  literally lived directly behind the house. He agreed to set up a showing with our realtor, but just in case the house wasn't what we were looking for, we decided not to tell the couple.

We still decided to drive by a few times just to see it in person. The second time we drove by was the day prior to our scheduled showing. When we arrived, there was a realtor showing around a guy and pointing out outdoor features. My heart sank. Like, I legitimately started crying, and I realized how much stock I had put into it.

You see, I had already planned the house out. I had decided the breed of thornless roses to grow along the side, and I had imagined the window boxes filled with pansies. I had decorated the kitchen, repainted the bathroom, and hung family pictures along the exposed brick of the staircase. I had even started the planning for J's first birthday party. You know that cliche about just knowing when you meet "the one?" Well, I had found the one, and here was this guy, trying on my wedding dress to marry him. It's not a perfect metaphor, but that's okay.

We got in the next day and looked around. In person, it seemed even better. And as Bryce walked around the huge yard, he agreed. By that evening, we were working on a contract, but because it was an old house (145 years, y'all), there was a lot of room to find major flaws that could have become evident during the inspection. We decided to continue keeping it a secret.

The next few weeks flew by, almost entirely thanks to my incredibly-organized husband (opposites attract). We had our inspection, and everything came back great. We got our loan through and completed any paperwork. But at this point, we decided something: it would be hilarious if we just never told the couple. We made several scenarios to reveal it. We could make cookies and bring them over and announce it was because we were new in the area. We could have Bryce ask them for help moving, have them come out to our old house and have them follow us back here, or my personal favorite, reveal it with Bryce mowing the yard shirtless with a Natty in hand.

In the end, we brought over a bag of muffins that Bryce's mom had made. Much to my relief, they were actually excited, which is good, because that could have gotten very, very awkward. Jeannie told me that she had spent so many months praying about new neighbors, so to have us move in wound up being "the best kind of surprise" (her words). It was a pretty great early April Fool's joke, if I do say so myself.

So, that's the reason I've been so vague. But now that it's out, I can't wait to start sharing more pictures and documenting the process. Bryce and I both have a pretty strong vision for how we want this place to feel. As I mentioned earlier, this house was built in 1870. The history nerd inside of me is dying from excitement. And I've seen enough Rehab Addict to know that you don't just go into a house like that and turn it into the cookie-cutter style. This house has a heritage, and I plan to honor that in every way possible.

If you're not a big fan of the old, I'll tell you right now this may be the point where you decide to stop reading this blog. And that's fine. But this is something I am thrilled to do, and I'd love to share the projects here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I will!

-Lindsay Fickas
Homeowner (what?!)

Life lately

It's my Spring Break for a few more days, and I know I said I would try to update, but I'm a filthy liar, and you should know that by now.

No, but for real, it's been a rather productive week. Our house is at an acceptable level of clean, and since we're looking at moving this season, we've started de-junking our house. I've been having a surprisingly amount of fun with it. When I was growing up, I was convinced that I was going to have at least one novel written by now, so I was constantly writing. It's hilarious to look back at now because it was just so, so bad. My main project was this novel based around youth group leaders (I'm being serious here), and it was going to be from switched perspectives. I honestly thought it was going to be to the level of As I Lay Dying, only it would be a Christian version, and oh my gosh. On my facebook, I recently shared a quote by Martin Luther that states, "The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes." I really wish I would have learned this sooner. Oh well, it makes for some great laughs now. 

I also came across a bunch of really old poetry that my teachers somehow awarded with passing grades as well as old journals. I thought this entry in particular was sweet:

In case you can't read this: So, there's a guy at my church, Bryce, who

I like a lot. I know also that he likes me. Today, we hung out and went 

mini-golfing, eating, and then to a Christian bookstore, all events 

surrounded by a ton of driving.

Y'all, that was our first date! That's also a mini-golf scorecard that my friend wrote "U like her" on and handed to Bryce, I think he had it in his pocket and gave it to me or something. The rest of the entry was just about how we also went to a Relient K concert and how I was excited and blah blah blah. I'm a little sad that I didn't write about much in the weeks before this. We had flirted quite a bit, but considering that was over eight years ago, I don't remember much of it. At least I know how it ends!

Also, I know I didn't give an update here regarding J's half (!!!!) birthday, but it's been such a great month. He's sleeping again, and my gosh, he's just the happiest baby. We started on solids, and he loves bananas and carrots, the latter of which unfortunately gave him the smallest reaction. He hasn't met a food yet that he doesn't like. He also sits up so well. He's been able to start really playing with his toys. It's so fun to see his little mind working while he spins the wheels on his truck. Bryce and I are so used to that toy that the majority of our communication consists of singing, "Oh, I'm off to work and I'm heading into town! My hard hat's on, and my wheels are going round!" Pray for us, guys.

We've also reached the teething stage, at least, I'm pretty positive, We had a false alarm about two months back, but this round has been confirmed by the pediatrician and lots of tears. It seems the worst at night, but for the most part, he's pretty unfazed.

I love this stage of motherhood so much. I love his smiles and his giggles, and I love getting to share some of my favorite fruits and veggies with him to see if he likes them. I love reading books with him, and I've been able to finally take him outside without worrying that he was about to freeze. There are just so many little things that I'm cherishing so much. Seriously, six months is where it's at!

Anyway, it's his lunchtime, and I still have a full afternoon ahead of me, so that's all I've got! I hope you're enjoying this beautiful day!

-Lindsay 

A Few Things

Remember how I said I may not regularly update? Yeah, I meant it. I did want to provide an update on what's going on around here lately, though.

School has really kicked in full force. I spend a lot of evenings and naptimes (I don't care what auto-correct says, that's one word) on my laptop. It has actually been kind of nice. Prior to January, I spent most of my days on a couch with Netflix. Nursing can take up so much time, and I started to feel like my mind was turning to mush from all the TV. This is something keeping my mind active, One course in particular, European History to 1715, has been really great for this. I spent quite a few hours this weekend hammering out an essay for it, and honestly, I loved every minute of it. There's so much about that period that I want to learn about, so researching and composing this essay wound up being rather beneficial. Plus, I made a color-coding system for my outline. As a very unorganized person, that's a big deal. 

We're back in a routine with J. I'm super psyched about that. I had some people ask in-person about us bumping up his bedtime due to him waking up so much in the night. Like most modern mommas, I found information about this on the Internet. I think the adjusted bedtime helped, but the biggest change most likely came after we introduced him to solids last week, We tried to put off this transition until he was six months old due to APA's newer recommendations, but he was so ready. It's been fun to see how he reacts to newer foods. We did bananas last week, and I have some sweet potatoes ready to puree this week. I'm curious to see how picky he is. Hopefully, he's better than me in that regard. 

I'm still trying to figure out how to maintain a clean house while balancing school and motherhood. It's a weird transition. I lost my job back in April due to layoffs and was able to spend the entire day cleaning if I needed to. Once J was born, it became harder, but I was usually still able to find the time. Now, I have about two days a week where I can devote maybe an hour or two to cleaning. It can seem overwhelming at times, and now that we're looking at houses, it's starting to become a bigger priority. A lot of the places we've looked at would need updating, and I don't want to put money into a house to make it look nice just to see it transform into something on par with a dorm room. If anyone has any tips, pass them along, please!

So, that's essentially it around here. This isn't the most exciting of posts, but it is essentially my life right now. Maybe Spring Break will be better. I'll have my own version of Girls Gone Wild where instead of being irresponsible in Miami, I go crazy and cook some bread and do some house projects. Just you wait. 

Five Months

How has it already been five months? 

It's incredible how much you've changed this month. You've gotten to be so much fun! You take every opportunity to use your voice. You reach up your fist to study it and then scrunch your face and talk as if you're explaining it to us. You see this thing? I just woke up, and there it was. Here, taste it and let me know what you think.You squeal with joy and blow raspberries. You giggle over the smallest things. Do you know how hard I had to work to get that giggle out at first? And now, it's the song of our house. 

You've started to reach for things, including your father and I. You're so curious. You love finding things with your hands. I can't keep your fingernails short enough to keep you scratch-free.

You've also started rolling over. It's still so new to you that you don't quite get it, but every now and then, you roll and get so excited. Tummy time is more exciting. You get up so high on your little arms and bobble back and forth. You raise your little eyebrows, and your blue eyes survey the room. You scream a little when you get tired of it, though, and we're a little worried you might have my temper.

You want to sit all of the time even though you can't really balance yourself yet. I'll slowly let you go, and you lean so far forward that you almost fall on your face. You've sat by yourself for about five seconds before you started to tilt.You're no longer satisfied laying down for long and constantly try to raise yourself up. When we put you down at night, we hear you lift your feet and slam them back down until you're asleep.

When you start getting fussy, all we have to do is stand you up, and you're blowing raspberries again.  You've grown to love your bouncer, and just this week, you've found out that it's aptly named Your little legs get going, and when you spring up, you get the biggest smile on your face. 

This is also the age where most babies start sleeping through the night. Not you, my little renegade. You've gone from sleeping for ten hour chunks to waking up once or twice. Apparently, sleep regression is common, and we've added an additional nap as well as bumped up your bedtime by two hours. It's helped a bit (you were waking up three or four times), and I really can't complain. I'm starting to love cuddling with you in the late hours because I know it's not going to last. It's also helping me master the art of the French press. 

I've loved every day I've gotten to spend as your mom, but I really think we're in the fun stage now. I can't wait to see how much more you learn and grow this month, and I thank God every night that I'm there to witness it.

I love you more than you could ever know,

 Mom

Retourner

"to return."

I've really started to miss blogging. I was never very good at it, and I can't guarantee this time will be any better, but I'm at least going to try my hand again. If anything, it's a great way to postpone doing my homework for another ten minutes or so (like I'm currently doing with French. Can I count the title as practice?).

I've accepted a few things this round:

• There's a good chance I won't keep this as updated as I'd like. I'm a stay-at-home mom and a full-time student. I definitely have free time, but I know that won't always be the case, and this is the lowest priority for me. Well, this and my Netflix addiction. 

• This won't be a mommy blog. I would love to use this as a way to document our family and J's childhood, but the more I hang around the internet and read news stories, the less convinced I am that it's a good idea. People are creepy. So while I will share updates or stories, I won't be posting pictures, and I'm just referring to him by his first initial.

To be honest, this blog is mainly because I'm falling back in love with writing, but I don't get as much opportunity to write whatever the heck I want. My Word documents are typically reserved for rigid French compositions or essays for history. I'm hoping this blog serves as a way to practice a bit each week. On top of that, I think it's a great way to keep track of different things I just don't seem to get around to such as making our house feel more homey as well as cooking more creatively. 

There's a good chance this will be boring. There's a good chance I might once again find myself erasing every post from a blog that existed for over two years and only had under two thousand views. But even if it is just me typing away into an empty atmosphere, that's okay. 

Well, here goes nothing!