Busy, busy week

Wow, I've really fallen behind in the writing. This week I was using most of my spare time to work on the baby's room. There were four primary tasks: get spray paint for the radiator, paint and install handles on the chest, build a shelf and clothes rack in the closet and then finish the dresser with some acrylic to make the paint a little more durable or show less wear.

Most of the projects have gone well, though they all took more time than I thought. As it turns out, I don't need to use high temperature paint on the radiator as they don't get hot enough to make it necessary. That revelation, from two Sherwin Williams dealerships and the internet, made the search for spray paint a bit easier. We are hesitant to put together the rest of the room before getting the radiator spray painted due to the potential mess.

Since we have a bunch of baby clothes already, we're focusing on how to store them all. The big 9 drawer chest will hold the bulk, but there's still more to hang up, so we figured we'd add a hanging rod a little more than half way up the closet and then I put a shelf on top of the brackets. Since baby clothes are so small, we can easily hang twice the clothes now.

Thursday night we had batting practice for our new team out in the burbs in a training facility, so LL asked me to pick up a shelving unit from my nemesis store: IKEA. I make no bones about it: I don't like IKEA products because they are cheaply made and difficult to put together. Yeah, maybe you can save some bucks, but I'd rather have a solid piece of furniture that will last decades than something that won't last til the end of THIS decade. Anyway, this piece will look good in the room and do the job at the same time.

If you haven't been to IKEA, they have everything on display and then you go to another area of the store to actually pick it up. LL did her research and gave me the aisle and bin numbers to pick up the shelving unit, so I only got a little lost. When I arrived at the aisle and bin, the unit was in two boxes and they were huge.....and heavy. Doh! After a lengthy checkout process due to someone a few people ahead of me having problems with their bank, I took the unit out to the car. My Camry fits a lot of stuff, especially when you fold down the seats, but this was going to be trouble. After struggling with them for a while, in the cold, I managed to get them in car. It was a snug ride home.

LL is doing well, though we have to keep an eye on her blood pressure which has crept up a few days over the last two weeks. She's at 32 weeks on Sunday and we had a good ultrasound today. The baby is about 4.5 lbs which would translate to about 8 lbs at birth, though there can be a lot of variables. The big thing is to keep LL's blood pressure down, so we'll work on that over the next few weeks. Maybe getting the baby's room done will help!