I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on enjoying pregnancy because of being busy, but I’ve been on productivity overdrive — probably to an irksome level. The whole nesting instinct has manifested itself beyond just my nursery decorating obsession. Every task has a due date, and I want to meet it so that I can check it off and move on and not be tangled in a jumble of unfinished to-dos when this baby arrives. Coming from a journalism background, I’m deadline-oriented to begin with, but pregnancy has added a whole new dimension to things. I worry I’ve been a little bit like a girl on the playground who is twirling the double dutch rope too fast. She’s not always the most fun to play with.

Thankfully, I feel like I’ve come to a resting point. Our big work fundraiser is now a fond memory. I had the day off Friday and got a massage from East Village Spa. It was a first Mother’s Day gift from Joe, who necessitated a midnight bar pickup Thursday after an evening of debauchery with my brother. I felt like I earned it on Friday. I also got to see some of the super cute designs from Brandi’s new POWpourri line when I stopped into Ephemera.

My family came into town. I graduated on Sunday with my Master’s degree. It’s crazy to think that 2.5 years of evening classes are behind me! We celebrated with dinner at Django.

I took today off, too, and caught my breath. There’s an empowering feeling and a beauty in pushing forward, even when it’s hard, but I’m so glad the finish line is in sight. My due date is June 4 and I’m feeling as ready as I’ll be.

P.S. All of the nursery components are finished. Just need to hang a few things and then I’ll have to post about everything. The room makes me so happy, but I do feel a twinge of guilt about how lucky our child will be. I want to let him or her know that from those to whom much is given, much is expected. I hope growing up in a beautiful space will inspire generosity and kindness.

It’s extra awesome when talented, creative ladies make something magical like this. Way to go, Katie and Bethany!

A bunch of craft bloggers are doing “So Pretty! Felt” book-related posts, if you’re interested.

The landing area was mostly just a catch-all with papers piling on top of a desk shoved against one wall. In the end, that’s probably what it will become again, but I’m doing some daydreaming for now and “shopping” from other sections of the house to make it a sweet sitting area. Because honestly, sitting sounds really good right now.

The upstairs also got a fresh coat of Benjamin Moore Heather Gray paint on the walls, re-whitened trim and our once-brass fixtures got the ORB treatment. ORB is awesome. Our contractor couldn’t believe we didn’t buy new hardware.

We’ll see how much more progress gets made in the coming weeks. Maybe in three years the landing will still look like that, with a lampshade on the floor. I can’t even post a total picture of our bedroom wall with French doors because it’s still such a shambles in there.

The French Door setup (these are actually white but the lighting was off) will provide a little more privacy without really sacrificing the open feel of the space. Plus, it will be a nice way to keep Wilbur contained without having to put him in his kennel. Eventually, we might get a pretty patterned window film for the glass panes, although Joe questioned my dedication to cutting so many rectangles.

Instead of decorating, a few favorite French-ish things these doors have me daydreaming about:

This quartet of French-y cards from Rifle Paper Co. Ephemera has carried these before.

Mornings at La Mie. (I have a feeling maternity leave will involve several stroller walks to get breakfast sweets.)

A delightful collection of shorts. Yeah, forget hanging curtains, I’ll be re-watching these.

A friend reupholstered our Craigslist rocker, and little creatures are taking up residence on the walls:

Reality check: Wilbur has also decided that he should poop in the nursery. Naughty pup. He’s never gone in the house before, so it’s fantastic that he’s decided to do this now, with the new carpet in. Probably his doggy way of staking a claim. It’s a good thing we finally got the door on to keep him out! Any suggestions?

Two Buzzfeed parenting articles that cracked me up:

When: Saturday, May 4, 2013 anytime between 8-11 a.m.
Where: Central Presbyterian Church, 3829 Grand Avenue (at 39th St.)
Cost: $5 per person or $20 per family. Tickets will be available at the door.

*Pancakes, cereal, strawberries and ice cream have been my #1 hankerings these past eight months. Bonus: If you come to the pancake breakfast, you can be one of the people who tells me in person how huge I look! Then I will glare at you and make you buy a raffle ticket as penance.

If you can’t make it, but are interested in contributing to “I Have a Dream,” we’re part of the Birdies for Charity program again this year. You can make an easy online pledge of $25 or more, or can pledge per birdie. This is an awesome program because our organization receives 125% of the funds raised, through a “bonus bucks” program.

Just act natural, Wilbur. Pensive stare. Got it.

And now, for some random updates:

Spring must truly equal love in the air, because the search term “Des Moines Dates” is sending quite a few people to BS in the Midwest. I’m going to have to come up with a quick and refreshed date list, but in the meantime, may I direct you to previous posts that I categorized under “Des Moines Dates.” Scroll down to get to the warmer weather ones.

I kind of can’t believe that I gave my final grad school presentation on Monday (just have to make it through the May 19 ceremony before my water can break!) and that the nursery remodel is finished. We just need to touch up window trim and put up some curtains and details before the big reveal. Oh, and build a little radiator cover. And maybe some bookshelves. I just go in and stand in it for no reason.

Joe is working on a guest post for you all about his 125-mile brother-in-law bike trip from Des Moines to Perry and back! They went last weekend when the weather was perfect and when I was crankily finishing up my school work.

I’m curious to see what he has to say about the trek. He didn’t get a lot of training in beforehand, but they seemed to have a blast.

Are you reading anything? I started NW by Zadie Smith on my way out to the baby shower. Now the class is over, I may finish it! I wrote about her novel White Teeth as part of my undergraduate thesis, so the timing is interesting.

Anyhow… Tim finally posted another update from his soon-to-be-father-of-triplets chronicles, so I thought it would be good timing to share what I made for the “Paluch 3-pack” baby shower. Tim is a huge Chicago sportsfan, so in addition to getting some bug-themed Eric Carle goodies for Gretchen’s entomology passion, I thought I’d attempt to make something a little sporty for the ladies. You know those big flower headbands that always seem to sprout out of baby girls’ heads? This is the sporty spice version:

I covered elastic with sweatshirt and jersey material (the jersey worked better, though) in Bears, Bulls and White Sox colors using techniques from this tutorial.

For the centers, I circles and a football shape out of felt – two for each piece – and blanket stitched them together. My circles are the size of the base of a can of baking powder, which I used as a tracing tool.

This was my first blanket stitching attempt and it was so easy that I might have gotten addicted! I embroidered the details freestyle. The baseball took a couple of tries. I recommend tracing the curves in disappearing ink and then making Vs along the line.

For the actual headband part, I used 14″ strips of elastic and about 18″ strips of fabric to cover them, but that really wasn’t enough to get a good scrunch, in retrospect. I recommend longer strips of fabric that you can always cut down if you need to.

I imagine you could always just use an existing lacy elastic headband, if you have one, and eliminate the need for a sewing machine. I may have messed up connecting the strips, because things didn’t end up as stretchy as I’d have liked, so hopefully these fit baby heads for longer than five minutes.

I used hot glue to attach the tulle and, to affix the ball shape to the headband. I made a third circle and football shape for each and glued the tulle to that, then sandwiched the headband between the tulle covered backing piece and my blanket stitched ball pieces. You can skip the tulle, if you like. Maybe go with a mesh instead, if you can find some? I put the ball over the messy looking ends that I’d sewn together.

Voila! This was a fun craft for me to try. I’m definitely going to be making some more baseball headbands this summer, and I’m sure I’ll finetune the process.

I should have gotten a photo of us because we managed to pull ourselves together nicely, but it was a packed house! We didn’t feel like wasting our put-togetherness on a “date” to get groceries at IngerDahl’s, so we went on an actual date to Zombie Burger instead.

Not this Friday, but NEXT Friday, May 3, I plan on hitting up the East Village again for a craft-themed First Friday, when lots of the boutiques stay open late and serve treats and host artists, etc. That Friday is like the shining beacon of light at the end of the tunnel of finishing up my capstone. It would be a fun date night, too! Marissa from The Moon and the Honey put together this lovely little video of some of the spots that will be hosting crafters next week. It definitely makes Des Moines’ East Village look the way it makes me feel, so I’m happy to share her video with those of you who haven’t had the chance to experience that area firsthand.

I’m not sure if Ephemera is participating (ladies?!) this time, but they did just get a shoutout on the DSM website.

They chose a sweet little venue, The Pinecone Cottage Teahouse, in Downers Grove, to host it, and crafted some special details.We don’t know if Baby J is a boy or girl yet, so everything was gender neutral.

The ABC theme was inspired by the Posie Gets Cozy Daisychain alphabet crewlwork project my mom has been working on (she got down to the ‘z’ by the day of the shower!) and carried through with cute little signs and details, like these sweet cookie mix favors shaped like mason jar bottles.

Showers elicit a dreamlike ‘and you were there, and you were there!’ feeling that comes from gathering important people who would never otherwise be in the same room together to share your joy. A table of my beautiful besties from Benet and Mizzou:

I’m also smitten with the scrapbook paper origami placeholders that my mom and aunts made when they were out in California. They stand up and have little pockets on both sides. The front held a little piece of paper with the name and table on it and the back had a tea bag tucked in. I’m taking one apart and will do another post on how to make them, since they didn’t have a tutorial for it.

The game we played reminded us all of how my grandpa makes up alternate names for things using fancier synonyms (Sloppy Joes = Untidy Josephs, etc.).

Can you figure out which children’s book titles these stand for?

1.  Emerald Yolk With Accompanying Pig Product
2.  Evening Salutations To The Celestial Orb
3.  Soft Cotton Toy Bunny
4.  Trifecta Of Minute Swine
5.  Pretty Girl Slumbering
6.  Unsightly Aquatic Bird
7.  Which Female Cares For Me
8.  Brunette Furry Animal, Brunette Furry Animal, I Ask About Your Observations.
9.  Locale Of The Concrete Walkway’s Termination.
10.  Be Off Canine, Be Off
11.  Famished Butterfly Predecession
12.  Fedora Wearing Feline
13.  Locale Of The Untamed Creatures
14.  A Breeze Blowing Through The Salex Trees
15.  Diminutive Domicile Situated in Open Country
16.  Bequeathing Topiary
17.  Pentagonal Tiny Primates Bouncing on a Trundle

I was stumped on a few, so let me know in the comments if you just can’t get one and I’ll tell you the answer!

Everyone was so generous and thoughtful – I know this little person is coming into a great support system. All of the guests even created an alphabet book. Everyone got assigned a letter and came up with a word and way to illustrate it:

The new nursery windows go in tomorrow, too!

I was a big anti-shower brat when it came to my wedding (my family threw me a little “drizzle” instead of a shower – how sweet amd funny is that?). My mom and godmothers have been goofy excited about the baby shower and have been planning for months. It’s all a surprise to me, but apparently the theme is not “baby manatees wearing glasses and reading books,” as I suggested. I’m sure it will be lovely nonetheless.

A few links while I’m gone:

Have you watched this Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign? Made me tear up a bit.

I went to the Des Moines Public Library’s AVID talk with Wild author Cheryl Strayed last night (packed house!). Here’s the rest of the 2013 AVID lineup, if you’re interested.

Speaking of nonfiction/memoir writing, a good friend from college is moving to Iowa City from D.C. because her husband got into the Writer’s Workshop! I’m so excited. It’s my dream to do one of these Iowa Summer Writing Fest workshops next summer, and she’ll be just the buddy to go with.

Lately, I cannot get enough of strawberries. I ate a bowl of Special K Red Berries at 11 p.m. the other night and bought two cartons and some angel food cake with the intention of making this.

The new room overlooks our back yard, which has me inspired to start sprouting some seeds. I won The Beautiful Edible Garden from Amy’s blog the other week, and I’m hoping this is the year my thumb turns green.