Archive Page 65

Help! The crib bedding is driving me batty!

I wish I had realized how important the crib bedding was going to be to me before I registered for any. Or bought any. Because frankly, I am now obsessed with how to fix what I perceive as a major flaw in Bear’s bedroom. Moving Bear into our room has been great. For the most part. The only real downside? Yes. You guessed it. Or, I guess, I already told you. It’s the bedding. Dear God, please help me come to some sort of resolution about this. I need to move on to other parts of life that need tending to. I simply can’t look at bedding anymore.

When Bear was living in the living room or, rather, when Bear’s stuff was living in the living room (Bear lived just as much in our room and on the dining room table and in her swing as much as she lived in the living room), we had these sheets on her crib and these changing pad covers on her changing pad. We had the blue dots and the pink dots for both the crib and as the cover. As you may remember, though, these kinda worked because the whole room was a million different colors. We were using this rug, for crying out loud. It worked. Or at least I declared it did.

Fast forward to Bear in her new room. Bear’s new room is painted this color because that was the color I asked AO to paint our bedroom (and I love it) and AO made it pretty clear he was not interested in repainting it. I actually love, love, love the color, but it changed the way Bear’s stuff looked. Her white crib and changing table really pop now, and her yellow lamp and radio make more of a statement. The way her room looked started to bug me because I no longer liked the mish-mash; it looked thoughtless instead of creative. I decided I needed to put a palette together. Obviously I would need to use a bold and dark blue, as well as a sunny yellow. I then added some gray to pick up the pouf. I threw in a dash of aqua and white.

I started with bedding and I started with fervor. I ordered pieces from this set. It was on back order, which bummed me out. As the weeks passed, I started to worry I had chosen wrong. I thought, “Maybe that yellow isn’t quite right. Maybe there’s too much gray. Will it relate to the blue?” Eventually, I called Land of Nod and asked them not to send it. I was told, though, that some pieces had just shipped. The kind customer service rep told me, though, that if I didn’t like it, they’d be glad to take it back for free, as it was an item off of my registry (yes, I stuck it on that registry post-baby). That sounded more than reasonable. My next steps, though? Not so much. The bedding came and we used it and I slowly began to realize it was all wrong. It’s really cute, but the yellow is way too deep mustard and doesn’t relate to the sunny yellow tones the way I wanted it to. Damn. It. I decided to sit with it, though, because what else was I going to do. [Answer: see the first paragraph in this post.]

I moved on.

After consultation with the GAOOG, I decided the next thing that needed to change was the rug. GAOOG declared the rug rug non grata and I had to agree. It’s way cute, but it was throwing everything off with its pink and red and orange shapes. I swapped in this. We already had one in the room from when it was in our bedroom (in the smaller size) so adding a bigger one seemed like it made sense. I think it does. It’s probably a little weird, but the whites look nice with the blue walls and blonde bamboo floors. Plus, I think Bear likes the way it feels.

The next challenge was storage. The Target boxes I bought fit perfectly into the Ikea bookshelf but they were not going to work with my new color scheme. I looked and looked but couldn’t find anything out there that was both the right size and right color. My usual suspects weren’t giving me anything I could use. After waiting it out for a bit, though, Land of Nod revealed with these numbers. It’s like they knew I was struggling and decided to throw me a bone. They’re so sweet. I ordered a couple in yellow and aqua, and one in blue. I also ordered this awesome mcawesome thing in yellow to hide all of Bear’s diaper-related accoutrements and two of these for the actual diapers and wipes and covers. Ta da! Blue and yellow all over! Bear is showing her West High allegiance early and often.

Having solved the storage and rug issues, I find myself back to square one on the bedding. Well, not exactly square one. I’m out whatever I paid for the Land of Nod stuff (I may try to sell it) and I’m still not quite sure what to do. I’ve been in major Etsy consultation mode, looking specifically at these options. And these. And these. But I can’t seem to pull the trigger. I am now a serious crib-bedding-phobe. I realize I brought it on myself, but that doesn’t change the diagnosis.

I think I’ve made a very strong showing that I need serious help. Please, Dear Reader, help me.

I’m definitely not a professor

As you may know, Dear Reader, I recently entered the hallowed world of academia. It is a world full of towers tiled in ivory and walls dripping with ivy. Cardigans, and a sense of self-importance, are mandatory in this world. Shoulders feel heavy as overstuffed heads sit atop them. Everything within this world is deeply meaningful while everything without it is trite.

Just kidding. I love academia. Plus, I’m teaching at the law school, which many academic types, and non-academic types, would consider vocational anyway. And then, on top of that, I’m teaching legal writing, which doesn’t lend itself to philosophical thought. Legal writing is all about being concrete, clear, reasoned and concise. Or at least my legal writing course is.

Anyway, I’ve been both excited and nervous about this new adventure of mine. I’ve always wanted to teach, but I’ve also always dreaded public speaking so I wasn’t sure how I would fare. I think it’s too early to tell, but I felt good about the first class and I’m relieved to have one under my belt. I hope I get just more comfortable.

A few weeks ago, I attended a meeting at the law school with other lawyers who were preparing to teach this same class. There were five male instructors and me (there are two other women who are instructors but I guess they were not able to attend this meeting) and we were told, from the director of the program and her assistant, about the goals of the course and how the semester should proceed. During a short break, I asked the fellow seated next to me — who had taught the course several times — how the students addressed him. He said that they call him Professor Smith (well, not Smith, but his actually last name, which I’m not going to use here). He said he begins the first class by introducing himself as Jack Smith (again, not really his name) and signs every email he sends them ‘Jack.’ Nevertheless, the students insist on calling him Professor Smith. He says it happens in every class, every semester. Hmm. Ok, I thought, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll just introduce myself and sign my emails ‘Kate.’ We’ll see what happens.

Yesterday I got to my classroom about twenty minutes before class was to start. After about five minutes of struggling with the AV equipment, a young woman opened the door to the classroom and asked if I was Professor _____ (except she said my last name). I surprised myself by not hesitating and answering, ‘Yes.’ She then relayed to me that two students were going to be absent because they both had interviews. Ok, that’s fine, I said. A couple of other students started to trickle in, some again asking if I was Professor ________. I was getting accustomed to answering quickly and affirmatively. Once I started class, though, I proceeded as I had planned, introducing myself as Kate ______. The students introduced themselves and I introduced the course. We moved on to a short essay-writing exercise I had them do and then, if they chose to do the exercise on their laptops (all but one did), I had them email me their essays. They almost all emailed them to me with the body of the email starting, “Professor ______.” One said, “Hey Professor _______.” A little informal, I thought, but that’s cool.

A little later, I wrote an absurdly long and overwritten sentence on the blackboard (I couldn’t figure out the AV equipment) and asked them to get into groups of three and figure out how to reduce the sentence to something more manageable and clear, while keeping the elements necessary to convey its message. As they were working on this, I heard, “Hey Kate, can you step to the side. We can’t see part of the board.” I quickly moved.

And then I looked at the clock. I hadn’t even been a professor for an hour.

Let’s try a poll

Lately, I’ve felt I’ve lost a lot of readership. And because I didn’t have that much to begin with, the loss is heartfelt. I worry that I’ve abandoned my readership in writing about topics my dear readers might not care for. Did I go into too much detail about my post-labor tribulations? Answer: yes. Have I bored all of you with my incessant talk about a new closet and bathroom? Answer: yes. Have I neglected to write anything about the coming football season? Spoiler alert: see above answers. In short, please help me get this blog back on track so I can have a more meaningful relationship with, my favorite people: people who read my blog.

Today

Today is one of my favorite days of the year and I didn’t even know it until about an hour ago. It’s the day The Isthmus distributes the best little present a Madisonian could ask for, the Annual Manual.

There are many things I love about the Annual Manual and just one of them is arguing with the insanity that is sometimes the result of the best happy hour poll. It’s nonsensical that anyone could answer the question without responding, ‘Genna’s.’ I mean, it’s so obvious it almost feels like a trick poll.

A new thing I love about this year’s guide, though, is the surprise I found on pages 50-51. There before me lay two pages devoted to (some) clever people’s responses to how to summarize Madison in a tweet. What are the limitations on a tweet? 140 characters, I believe. Is that right, GAOOG? [She’s an expert in all things Twitter, by the way.]

Here are my three favorites -‘ Madison in a tweet ‘- in ascending order:

3. Me: Why doesn’t everyone live here? Father-in-law: I don’t know.

2. Bikers are neither cars nor pedestrians. Discuss.

1. My cab driver is smarter than your honor student.

There are quite a few I didn’t like at all and because I didn’t like them, they will not be featured on this blog. The end.

Bathroom 2.0

In reinventing our entire home (at least it felt that way), one of the priorities was redoing the downstairs bathroom. It really wasn’t that bad, but if it was going to become our main bathroom (which it was and now is) I really wanted some updates. Number one (no pun intended) necessary new item was a toilet. I swear the old one was about six thousand gallons per flush. I also wanted tile flooring (it had vinyl tile) and a new sink. Oh, and a tiled shower. Eeks! I didn’t think this was too crazy, but the contractor we had do some things for us insisted that we did not want a tiled floor or a tiled shower. We didn’t? I really thought we did. Hmm. Upon hearing this, my mom insisted we head out to Nonn’s to see whether they believed us when we said we wanted things tiled. They did. Thanks mom! They took my credit card number and the rest is history.

I took crappy before shots and my after shots aren’t great, either. It’s a small space so it’s kinda hard to photograph. I think you get the sense of the thing, though.

Old toilet and toilet paper holder

Old toilet and old toilet paper holder

New toilet

New toilet!

Toilet paper holder

Thanks to Home Depot for the awesome new (and so easy to use) toilet paper holder! Why companies make such craptastically hard-to-use models is beyond me.

I think you get a pretty decent sense of the flooring difference in the above photos, too. Vinyl versus tile. Though our contractor guy insisted “they make really beautiful vinyl these days,” I have to disagree. I’m not against vinyl as an immutable rule, but geesh: it can’t compare to tile in a bath. Plus, because the bath is teeny it seemed the one place in the house we could probably afford to tile. Alright, what’s next? Ah! The shower! There wasn’t really anything wrong with the previous shower stall, but it just wasn’t very welcoming. And as someone who already showers a lot less frequently than she should, I didn’t need yet another excuse not to rinse off. [I had never showered in the downstairs bath — that’s seven years of avoidance — until we got the new shower.]

Shower stall

The previous shower stall

One of the loves of my life: white subway tile

Shower stuff

And let’s have one more, shall we?

From the doorway

And let’s look at some sink-on-sink action:

A very loft-vibe with its exposed piping

And the pedestal sink with its pipes covered up like the Puritan it is

What else? Well, I kinda wanted to glam the space up. I suspected divorce could be in my future if I asked Aaron to paint again, so we kept the wall color (which I actually like even more now), and I just added some bling with chrome-y accessories and some cleanliness with white, ceramic toiletry necessities.

Glass shelf with what-nots

Storage

Deer head

That last piece was just added tonight (it cost me $20, but honestly I think it’s my favorite thing in the room after the tile). We’re still waiting on one light fixture, and we need a little caulk here and there, but this is pretty much our new bathroom. I really hope you like it.