Things I never thought I’d say: There’s a foot in my ribcage. And it keeps moving.
Things I never thought I’d do: Inadvertently fart while talking to Wildflower in the stairwell because we were trying to hide from our bosses. Then fart again because I was laughing so hard at the first one. Low point.
Oh pregnancy, how thou doth mock me.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind. -Dr. Seuss
After last week, when I had approximately 400 people stare at my belly, talk to me about it even though they were complete strangers, make rude comments like “you look like you’re going to have that baby today”, etc, I was ready to get stabby. But, then I decided that I was most certainly not going to let other people, especially strangers, make the last few weeks of my pregnancy unhappy. Or about their own selfish need to say something when they would be best served to just keep their stupid mouths shut. No way. I am not going to give them power over me, and the way I planned to take back the proverbial night was with my ipod. Yes!
See, the majority of comments I get are when I’m on the elevator at work. So, my thought is if I just wear headphones and listen to the ipod during all of my traveling through this building, I will be able to avoid people without seeming rude. Win, win, right? Wrong.
This morning was phase one, and it was a failure. I walked in with headphones in place, listening to the 5th Game of Thrones book which I am desperately trying to get through so I can be done with this long-winded writer…until he writes the 6th and 7th books that is…when as I approached the elevator lobby, a man caught my eye and started talking to me. I don’t think I have to express what I was thinking, but I will. Something along the lines of WWWWWWWWWWWTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF??????????
I removed my headphones and said huh? I was even somewhat nice about it because it was someone I know and like, but come on. How are you feeling?
Motherfucker.
Phase One, total failure. This afternoon, I’ll begin Phase Two, which will consist of headphones, no eye contact and head down at all times.
But I hate, I repeat HAAAAAAAAATE to be stared at. Hate. And if there is anything I hate worse than that, it’s for said starer to start talking to me. Listen, I’m already mad at you for staring like the uncooth idiot you clearly are, so why would I want to speak to you? I don’t.
You can imagine how difficult pregnancy is for me considering all people do is stare at you, then ask the following questions:
1) When are you due?
2) Is this your first baby?
3) Do you know what you’re having?
4) What is the other one?
5) Are you going to try for a girl?
Infuriating. One, you do not know me so why in five hells would you even care? I mean, I get that my belly is out there for the world to see. Like a gigantic neon ball blinking on a dark, moonless night. But, can’t you just stare in silence? Must you open your mouth and proceed to have verbal diarrhea in my presence? Especially when it is obvious that I’m trying not to look at you or make eye contact.
Today, I went to the restaurant in our building to pick up some salad dressing and as I was waiting, this woman walks up. I recognized her from the elevator where she gave me the quick once over stopping briefly at my belly. She was standing a couple feet away from me, and the restaurant was getting louder. Good, I thought, because maybe she wouldn’t try to talk to me even though she was side-staring and I could sense that she was dying to say something.
WHEN ARE YOU DUE?
There it was. Almost a yell over the crowd. I turned to look at her, and it was as if she were boring a hole through my face with her intent eyes. I wanted so badly to just look away, but even though I vowed not to take any shit from people (and I do consider this shit), I just couldn’t. I’m weak, what can I say.
June.
Not too weak.
I made my exit after answering her with not a punch, kick or curse word left behind.
At long last, our kitchen cabinets are done. Painted with new hardware and looking as glorious as we imagined they would. Better actually.
To give you an idea of what we were tolerating working with over the last 22 months, here are a couple before shots of our kitchen cabinets.
Don’t mind the mess. I think this was one morning before work when we were trying to get shots to show potential painters.
You can see that the color is just light wood. Meh. What you can’t see are the fading areas and the shininess from the finish that was on them. Not my style.
Here’s another angle:
This pic was taken the day the painters were coming, hence the Dewalt radio. Normally, we would not adorn the countertops with that thing, but I digress. The point is…blah.
The main thing I didn’t like was that the cabinets were too close in color to the floor, and they made the white countertops stand out like sore thumbs. But what to do? Paint? Stain?
We decided to go with paint because staining would take forever, and the smell would linger for even longer. Also, with the wood floors, it could get too woody in there. Wouldn’t want that, wood would we? Ha, I kill me.
Anyway, so paint it was. I have always loved the cottage look so naturally I was drawn to green Martha Stewart type colors. Convincing Husband was not as easy. I picked up a swatch of Grandma’s Linen by Valspar and taped it to the cabinets many many many months ago. We looked at it every day with the light of winter and spring and the natural light vs. our kitchen lights. (I say we here but I really mean I because I’m sure Husband didn’t notice it again after the first time.)
One day, about a month ago, as we were planning to do this project sooner than later, we got a little worried that the green would be overwhelming. We went to Lowes and looked at different colors. Then, we went to the back and looked at cabinet samples. Luckily, they had two different greens that we liked but that made it easy for us to decide. One was lighter and a bit bluer than what we wanted, and one matched pretty closely to Grandma’s Linen.
After having a real visual, Husband was sold. So, we went through the fiasco of the Craigslist deadbeat, then found Franklin Zelaya. He was ready to roll the week we met him, and the rest is history.
And finally, here are the after pics. This first one is from the living room looking into the kitchen:
The first thing we thought when we first saw it was that the color was lighter than we expected. And AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s hard to tell by these pictures because I’m not good with lighting, but it is basically the most perfect color ever. So cottagey and lovely.
And as I said last week, the countertops now look great with it. Sure they need cleaning, but they are a good counter (punny!) to the color.
Even though we were going out of town last Saturday, nothing would stop us from getting the hardware we needed to complete the look. The drawer pulls are this, and the cabinet knobs are this. 
Pretty expensive when you need 18 handles/knobs plus hinges, but soooooooooooooo worth it.
