As a fair warning this post is totally unrelated to running and is a bit long, but it's what I've been up to outside of the running/working-out world the past month. And honestly, my life is comprised of a lot more than running, so why not share a little bit of that side of me? About mid-July I started a running list on my refrigerator: "To Do Before Baby." It was quite the list:

The Basement:

Though our basement isn't finished, we use it a lot. My laundry is down there, our home gym and a pantry of sorts for dry goods. Keeping it clean and uncluttered helps make the space usable. When we first moved into our home last November we did a major purge of many of our belongings. Our stuff had been in storage for two years. I'll have to back track to explain why. Four years years ago we decided to move back to New Hampshire from Arizona, leaving our 2,000 square foot home for a one bedroom apartment that we believed would be a temporary solution until we found a better place. "Temporary" turned into two years. I talk complain about it in older posts. It was not easy, the space was small, it was a huge challenge to get Sophia to sleep through the night and I missed my stuff. Or so I thought. When most of your stuff is in storage for two years, you realize what is really important to you and then the rest you forget about. So all that stuff that was no longer important to us sat in the basement of our new home for a while. We took several loads to Goodwill, but there was a stubborn pile (mostly heavy books) in the corner that was taking up space and blocking things that I really needed: like a few of the baby things and my sewing stuff. Both items further down on my to-do list that would be easier to get done if I could actually get to them. So with the help of my husband we cleaned out our cluttered corner and made a contribution to my parents yard sale. We ended up making $70!

Get Out Baby Stuff:

With the basement corner clean I could access the baby supplies that I'll be needing shortly: namely the carseat. It was still in its original box, where I put it after we moved Sophia to a bigger carseat. Because we've moved so many times I save all original boxes: Computer box? Blender box? Food processor box? Check, check and check. I carefully break them down and store them each time we move in to a place and then reassemble them and get them back out when we move again. It sounds a little compulsive, but I like to keep my things nice and keeping the boxes keeps things nice through moving and storage. Or so I thought. When I opened the carseat box it emitted a damp smell. I pulled out the carseat to discover that it was covered with mildew and mold. I almost lost my lunch. And then I just got mad. So mad that despite my efforts to keep my things "nice" something got ruined. Thinking that I'm careful and this stuff only happens to people who are careless and don't take care of their stuff. (I'm sure there's a deeper lesson there somewhere.). At first I thought: We're gonna have to trash it. That's $150 we have to shell out for something that we HAD. And I got madder about the money. Then I thought, What if this mold is dangerous? Should I even be touching it? I texted my husband about the crisis and sent him this message:

Then I texted my mom to see what she thought I should do. Then I google it. I found that its a fairly common problem with a simple solution and that the most dangers form of mold is black mold and this wasn't that. So I donned some gloves and sprayed it down with a vinegar solution (kills mold), I then put all the cloth padding in the laundry on the hottest setting with a color safe bleach and detergent. I washed the straps by hand in a vinegar solution and then in detergent (I read that using bleach can break down the fibers of the strap and make them less effective in case of an accident). I took the base outside and sprayed it down with vinegar and then washed it with an all purpose anti-bacterial cleaner. Then I set everything out to dry in the sun. I'm still not sure why this happened. Perhaps the summer humidity? I'm not sure, but either way we now have a dehumidifier running constantly. And everything was fine. The carseat is as good as new, clean, smells nice its ready to use. Crisis averted.

Finish Sophia's Bedroom:

Sophia's bedroom is also the baby's bedroom. They'll be sharing a room for a while so I wanted them to each have special elements in the room that made it their own. Since I was painting our baby boys name for above his crib, I wanted Sophia to have have her own special decorations. So I painted her initial and hung it above her bed, I also painted some of her quilt fabrics on two canvases. Her quilt was made by my Mom, and amazing quilter who has her own sewing business. Check out her stuff HERE. She's also making a custom quilt for baby boy. I'm very pleased with how the room came out. I would love to reveal the art work I did for our baby boy, but his name is totally under wraps and a secret:-)

Prepping Sophia's room including some major reorganization of her closet and dresser to make room for her baby brother's clothes. I also cleaned out under her bed, which had become a catch-all for suitcases, sleeping bags and the like. They are now in the basement in rubbermaid bins, leaving her bed free for those three colorful crates which house her shoes, a few toys and "dress-up" clothes.

Master Bedroom:

As much as I wanted to Sophia and the Baby's room to be organized, clean and bright I wanted my room to become a sanctuary. A place where I could go to relax. When we first moved in our room was bleak, functional, but bleak. We're renting our little condo, so painting the walls is out. But I'm OK with the white it gave me a clean slate to work with. We had some of the furniture, but I needed a bench and a side-table: the bench for my sweaters and the side table to replace the rubbermaid bin that was holding my sweaters and doubling as side table. I found a bench at a yard sale for $5! It was not what I pictured for the foot of our bed, but I had an idea: paint it gray with a coral/salmon colored stripe down the middle. I wanted to add a splash of color to our gray and white bedding and was sure I could find some throw pillows with the bright color to tie things together. The stripe turned out to be a garish orange and the gray was all wrong. So I re-did the bench in a gray/brown and white, the result was perfect and it fits. I found a night stand at TJ Maxx for cheap and my sweater storage/nightstand issue was resolved.

To dress up our blank walls I took photos from a "Love Recaptured" photo shoot I did with my friend Deborah from Deborah Zoe Photography. The photo shoot gave me a chance to get back in my wedding dress and for my husband to get all dressed up in his wedding suit. We hiked out into the woods in the snow and Deb took some AMAZING shots. I finally got them printed and put into frames this summer (our shoot was over a year ago). We've also got a few shots from a "Cowboy" themed shoot we did for our Christmas Card with our friend Monica from Impromptu Photos in Arizona.

Now our bedroom is somewhere I want to spend time, it feels like a peaceful escape: exactly what I need sometimes.

Sophia's Kitchen:

For a while now Sophia has been interested in playing "cooking." She's been using the coffee table as her counter/oven/sink. I knew that I wanted her to have a play kitchen, but I didn't want a massive plastic behemoth taking up space in our house and I'd seen a few clever ideas on Pinterest.

At the middle of July, after searching multiple yard sales, I found a night stand at the Salvation Army. It was a good choice for the base: a good height and wide enough for a sink and the burners. It sat in our basement for three weeks, waiting for me to do something with it. Finally, last weekend my husband and I tackled the night stand.

I was excited and eager at first, but we ran in to a few hiccups: like the fact that the drawer was simply on runners and was not framed into the nigh stand, which meant we had to build a shelf in order to create the oven. There were other points of frustration but we were doing it together for Sophia, so we laughed at how much effort it was taking. We had to laugh too at the fact that I had declined a FREE plastic kitchen earlier in the summer and that making the kitchen was costing WAY more than we had thought it would. in the end it was well worth it: to see the reaction on Sophia's face when she saw it for the first time was priceless. Now she'll have way to entertain herself after the baby comes.

I had the most fun accessorizing the kitchen with real, mini cooking utensils which I found at TJ Maxx (the colander and the pan). I also made a little curtain, towel and oven mitt; out of felt I made an egg, pancakes, toast and spaghetti. We tucked it into a little corner of our kitchen and she hasn't stopped playing with it since!

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Burp Cloths: Since I hauled out my sewing machine to make the curtain and towel for Sophia's kitchen, I decided it was the best time to turn the fabric I bought at the beginning of the summer into a few items for Baby Boy. I'd been planning on making burp cloths and a little blanket and I was able to put them together in an afternoon. Here's a look at the process and the finished result:

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Now that the list is complete I'm ready for this baby...and wondering what I'm going to do next. Maybe I'll start stocking our freezer with pre-made meals. Or start watching Downton Abbey sooner than planned:-)

What do you do when you're not running?

--Sarah

Tackling the Pre-Baby To-Do List

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