Projects!

I am utterly frustrated with our technology situation here at the DSM Beecher household.  JJ and I both have laptops that were fully capable...6 years ago when we bought them.  Now they are painfully slow, crash constantly and make simple things (like uploading photos...which is of growing importance to me) quite frustrating.  Pair that with our lack of reliable internet (we use a Sprint card and have a low signal) and blogs become week-long projects for me to get composed and posted.  I think we need a new computer.

Anyway, pretending that I am able to write frequently, I am going to spread out the variety of my posts here. I love writing about Evan, but he's 7 months now and I'm realizing that not everyone may be so interested in things like the color of his poop or how many times he rolls over on the changing table while I'm changing his clothes (no less than 3 times, every time - for those of you interested).  I've been taking on more projects trying hard to turn what used to be the polo club house into our home.  However, our budget is about as limited as Evan reading abilities right now...pretty limited.  And, I hate spending money for things that I'm pretty sure I could do myself.   Most recent project: I've decided to take on stripping and refinishing and end table.  It doesn't seem so hard, but it is the first time I've stripped varnish so there are umpteen areas it could go wrong.  But what's a person to do when faced with a nice table for free...a gift from my parents garage of treasures?  I mean, we could go purchase a table, but I just can't bring myself to drop $100 or more on a piece of furniture.  I know...I'm cheap.  But I also like to do things for myself.  And again - its not in the budget.  Here is the table (this picture loaded in only 15 minutes!).

I have spent days now stripping, scrubbing, and scrapping away during Evan's nap time.  It now looks like this.

Gross.  Now I see why they plastered on the varnish.

Luckily, I have a can of black spray paint and a clear sealant spray paint.  It won't look near as good as the nice wood table I had envisioned, but it will  look decent enough to at least pass off as something I purchased at a garage sale.  The good news is, Evan loves blueberries...or anything really. :)

A Mom's Free Time

I love fall! The cooler weather and shortening days have a way of inspiring me...the cool weather really wakes a person up!  Almost 7 months into this parenting thing and I'm finally settling in and relaxing into things.  Our nights seem more restful (we only wake up 1 or 2 times at night) and the days have a smidgen of free time in them as Evan has begun taking longer naps fewer times daily.  What is a mom to do with herself?? :)  Of course, I'm still cleaning up after the Dominican roommates (they leave next week) and keeping up with our family's daily mess, but I've got my routine down and can knock it out fairly quickly (although admittedly, I need to vacuum more frequently).  I've begun to master my pacifier clip making skills and am pleased that other people are actually interested in buying them. Today (being that it's a little rainy and I don't feel like going out) I'm going to do some research on setting up an Etsy.com shop to market the products resulting from my need to create.  

As inspired by my new favorite person/blogger/cookbook author, Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman), I'm trying to hone my photography skills, too.  There is nothing more I would love than to have a sweet camera like the Nikon D3, but - lets be honest - that's out of our budget (barring a winning lotto ticket).  So, I'm setting my sights (no pun intended) on something more like the Nikon D90.  I'm working on a black and white photo wall for our home at the moment.  Here are some of the 200 pictures sister Katie and I snapped the other day.  I need more practice, but I figure if I don't use the camera I have now, I have no business wanting a nicer one! ;) These were taken with our Nikon Coolpix camera, which takes great shots, but the photos print off pretty grainy if I use the zoom at all and it has a hard time capturing action shots.

Hope everyone is having a great fall so far!