revjim.net

Fatherhood is stressful and I'm not even there yet.

It seems as though, somehow, Jess managed to redirect that whole nesting instinct thing to me. So I've spent far too much sweat, time, money, and thought on various room remodels, redecorating attempts, carpentry projects, and general reorganization. I'm sure Jess was mumbling under her breath, when, seconds after she'd discovered, with joy, that she'd escaped the nesting instinct entirely, she hears me saying, "well, we could knock down this wall and open up…". Of all of the projects I started, only three or four remain, so I'm still hopeful that they might actually get finished before the baby gets here. I hope she appreciates the amount of trouble her mom and I went through to give her even a small chance at having the same birthday as Jake Gyllenhaal AND Alyssa Milano. (Richard Hammond too, but I doubt many people other than Melissa know who that is).

First there's the three rooms in various stages of "almost done": the Garden Room, the Game Room/Office, and the Baby's Room. These need to be cleaned, straightened, organized, decorated, and other wise made presentable. This, thankfully, requires mostly time and very little money.

Then there's the platform bed project, one of those "psssh, I could totally make that" moments. After a week of planning and some help from my dad on build day it was nearly complete until I realized one small flaw in the design making it very difficult to make the bed once the platform bed was put in place. 3 more sheets of 4×8′ MDF and another can of paint should do the trick.

Then there's that project where I said, "of course I can paint this pine crib white if that's what you want, honey". Of course, thanks to the fine liars at Lowes, we are now working our second attempt at this project. Jess has pretty much taken this project over. I keep urging her to give up insisting that we can just go buy a white crib, but, now she's determined. That's part of why I love her so much.

I'm planning on making a really swanky headboard for our bedroom and I know exactly how I'm going to make it. But I haven't even started yet. Along with this comes curtains for our bedroom which is more about money and less about time.

We put some pendant lights in the office which required a wall switch to operate which got me started on wireless light switches which, in turn, launched me into a crazed, bug ridden, expensive quest to update almost every light fixture in the house. Thankfully, Jess managed to help me tone down my expectations so I might actually finish it without selling my liver.

The Garden Room (which we're now using as a casual dining area) needs a Coax TV drop. This isn't easy because my attic is small and the wall it has to be dropped on is packed with insulation. However, I think I've devised a plan. Then, to get this to really work, I'll either need a couple of CATV modulators, someone to invent a media playing product that works the way I want it to (not AppleTV; cheaper and without the iTunes requirement),or some other undetermined solution.

I know, this seems like a long list. But really, it's a lot smaller than the one I started with.