How Grown Ups Spend the Fourth of July

"We're adults.  When did that happen?  How do we make it stop?"  ~Grey's Anatomy

When I think about the Fourth of July, I immediately get visions of water skiing and burgers and fireworks and fruity drinks.  And then, at least this year, I snapped right back to reality.....I'm pregnant, The Boy from Texas is on call for work, we've got a million things to do around the house, and we're really trying to stay on a strict pre-baby budget.  Some days, I sort of forget that I'm an adult.

So instead of fun in the sun and acting like teenagers, we spent our weekend like grown ups.  Here's the run down.

Fixer Upper Inspired Project

The Boy from Texas has been talking for a couple of weeks about wanting to knock out a certain wall in our house.  He's got vision that I don't have, because I never would have thought of doing it.  So, on Friday, he convinced me it was time to undertake this project.  And, having watched enough Fixer Upper on tv, I knew that taking out walls was a legit thing to make a house look cooler, so I obliged.

We trecked to the hardware store where we bought wood, trim, a crow bar, saw blades, paint, and some other stuff I didn't keep track of.  We came home, and he got underway.  Mostly I handed him the saw when he wanted it and stayed out of the way.  We find this generally works best for projects of this nature.

Before...

...during...

....after.

Y'all.  I cannot tell you the difference getting rid of that one little wall made in the house.  It looks and feels SO much bigger and more open now!  

Baby Clothes Organization

I think the nesting phase has begun.  I'm dying to get things organized--not just for the baby, but in our house.  However, until our addition is finished (hopefully 2-3 weeks!), I really can't do much.  One thing I decided I could do was sort through the MOUNDS of baby clothes people have given to us and organize them by size.

My rationale for this is that I don't want to try and keep a year's worth of clothes out in his room at one time.  Instead, I'm planning on only having a couple of sizes but away in the closet and dresser with the larger sizes waiting in tubs for the right time.  When he outgrows one size, we'll bring in the new ones, pack up the smaller ones, and be on our merry way.

Here were the clothing piles.  Can someone say spoiled?

Helplessly Looking Through the Disaster of a Garage

Our garage is packed to the gills of junk.  Boxes of my stuff from College Station.  Boxes of The Boy from Texas' stuff from his old house.  Furniture that won't fit in our house at the moment.  Furniture owned by Cousin Swiss Mister that somehow magically appeared in our garage.  It's enough to make the Type-A person in me go completely nutzo.  I am telling you, if it kills me, we are getting this thing cleaned out and stuff either sold, given away, or thrown away.

Selling Old Cabinets

After realizing that the cabinets we tore out behind the removed wall were in really good shape, we decided to do our first "for sale" post on a Facebook page for our little community.  Within 4 hours, we had sold the cabinets.  When I can finally clean out said garage disaster, I plan on utilizing this knowledge again!

Community Fireworks

We did at least get a little festive on Saturday night when we noticed lots of fireworks being shot off in town.  We loaded up Angus and headed to check out what was going on.  We found that at the city park, pretty much the entire town was gathered.  Most people were sitting on tailgates watching the fun, while apparently every family in town who brought fireworks gathered together to shoot them off.  While the festivities lasted for over two hours, Angus was not a fan, so we only lasted maybe 20 minutes before we took that little guy home and hoped that all the loud noise didn't cause any permanent harm.  Judging from the look of things, I think he's fine.

Clean Sheets

Is there anything better than going to bed after a busy day on fresh, clean sheets?  I think not.  On Saturday I got all our laundry washed, our bed made, and even managed to get the throw pillows placed just so.

Singing "God Bless America" at Church.

There are lots of great things about our little, small town church.  But on Sunday, with only maybe 40 of us in attendance, the pastor began singing, acapella, God Bless America.  By the end, we had all stood, joined in, and the American flag was brought down the aisle.  It's so easy to get caught up in all of the strife and opinions and party lines and politics and forget that we really do live in the greatest country in the world.  That song in that church was a pretty darn good reminder for me.

Reading Babywise

I hear good things about this book and approach to parenting an infant.  I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book now and have done lots of dog-earing and highlighting so far.

Had you told me this time last year this is how I'd be spending my long weekend, I'd have called you completely crazy.