wordless wednesday: waiting for the pediatrician

progress

When you stare at a mess day after day, it's hard to see any progress through the mountain of boxes that still reside. I have to keep reminding myself that there is progress though. We did get some things crossed off the to-do list which brings it down to only eleventy-billion more to go.

This was the first weekend in I'm not sure how long that we didn't go to Irmo to work on that house. That doesn't mean that we stayed put in Spartanburg though. Saturday we headed to Greenville to take maternity pictures of Jessica and Bryan on Furman's campus. I'd never been and it really is a beautiful area. Bryan was a trooper as clearly "kiss and hold" really isn't his favorite and Jessica stuck it out through all of the "now bend this way and look over here" moments. Fingers are crossed we got some good ones!

We had lunch at Taco Casa {not my favorite but the hubs and Jessica go crazy over it...guess you have to be from Greenville to be obsessed}. The hubs fed Quinn some of his bean burrito and declared the baby now loved Taco Casa as well. We'll see about that... The rest of the day was spent going to a huge kids consignment sale, Surplus Warehouse to look at cabinets {unfortunately they closed 15 minutes before we got there}, Michael's, Jessica's parents' house to scope out her baby shower set up, and then a drive out to Simpsonville to see the progress on their house that's being built. Whew!

Actually house unpacking progress didn't happen until Sunday... what did we do again?

• mowed our massive back yard {the hubs}
• washed and put away 3? 4? what feels like 17? loads of laundry {me}
• attempted to find a home for all of our clothes {me}
• side note: the hubs is insistent that we can fit everything in our room but I just don't think it's possible. Old house had a walk-in with built in shoe cubbies and I still had overflow in the guest room. New house has a crummy closet with no shoe cubbies. Seriously, where do I put all of the shoes??
• put away one more box of kitchen stuff {me}
• assembled the guest bed {the hubs}
• cleared the nursery of all boxes and painted the walls {the hubs}
• cleaned/put away all bathroom stuff {me}

It's not the prettiest bathroom by any means but it's clean. We want to get a new vanity with double sinks. The current has the one sink with the open cubby on the other side. Never understood the point of that. Such wasted space. Also it takes some man-handling to be able to open those drawers. They aren't sitting on rails, just wood. The color, well, the color looks like something out of Quinn's diaper. 

I haven't found the shower curtains yet, but I plan on putting up a really pretty blue striped one I already have and navy rugs. I want to paint the walls a light blue gray and the cabinets a charcoal gray. I've become obsessed with the blue/gray color combo. Luckily the tile in the shower and on the floor is already a blue so it'll go perfectly with my game plan.

When I went into the bathroom to take the picture, Quinn caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror so I set him down and let him play.

After the initial suspicious looks he started to give the baby in the mirror kisses. I wish I would have taken a picture of that but I was too busy laughing. It was pretty cute until I had to clean up all of the drool all over the mirror.

How was your weekend?

tips and tricks: the pediatrician

I'm linking up again with Meagan for:

We recently moved to the upstate and with a move comes not only a new house, a new job, and a new Walmart layout {seriously, why can't they all be the same?}, but also new doctors. At the top of my to-do list was to find Quinn a new pediatrician. Below is the process I went through to find one. I hope it helps!

• I logged onto our insurance website and clicked on their "Find a Doctor" link. This way I was positive the doctor I chose would take our insurance.
• I then started cross referencing the doctors on the insurance list against patient ratings on www.vitals.com. Through this website you can find out years of experience, where they went to medical school, what hospitals they are affiliated with, and lots of other goodies.
• From there I started calling the different offices to see if that particular doctor was accepting new patients.
• Once I found a doctor that I thought might be a fit, I made an appointment to meet with her.
• At the appointment I asked the following questions:
• How many doctors are in the practice?
• What is the likelihood that he would see another doctor?
• What's the average wait time?
• How quickly can I get a sick appointment?
• Is there a nurse line? Is there a charge for using it?
• Do you have after hours/weekend hours?
• Do you offer breast feeding support?
• If I didn't feel comfortable with our meeting or her answers I would have gone to the next doctor on my list.

Fortunately, the first doctor I met with felt like a great match for our family. Quinn has his nine month well visit this Wednesday so hopefully I will still feel the same way after his first appointment!

so there is a floor under there after all...

The other night the hubs and I gingerly so as not to wake the baby threw all of the Christmas decorations, childhood toys, camping gear, and the like up into the attic. Holy cow what a difference! I can actually see the floor in two of the bedrooms and the dining room now.

We're lucky we have a huge decked attic that can accommodate all of our stuff. The hubs even declared that we could get more Christmas decorations because there's plenty of room up there. After helping haul up two very large tree boxes I'm not so sure about that.

We're also lucky that we have a baby who will sleep through anything. We weren't particularly quiet that night but when it was all done I peeked into his room and he was still out cold. I then quietly shut the door with relief {because the click of the door knob would probably be the one thing that woke him ha!}.

five friday confessions

• I wore one of my maternity dresses this week. Hopefully no one could tell ha!
• I like to listen to the Disney channel on Pandora and it takes a conscious effort not to sing out loud at work.
• The hubs shot down the bedding I've been pining over. Now I'm completely over finding anything new. I'm ready to just leave everything as is.
• Even though my ankle is killing me, I've been enjoying the rainy weather. It makes being at work a little more bearable, like I'm not wasting a pretty day being stuck inside.
• I think this may be the first year I'm actually missing color guard. I wish I had a flag at home because I'm itching to spin Eye of the Tiger. 

creating calm

It's no secret that my life has been pretty chaotic lately. It started with having a baby then add a new job for the hubs, a new job for me, packing up our life in one city and moving to another, and I just now am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know it's all part of God's plan and I'm trying to roll with the punches.

What may not be so apparent is how I'm handling all of this change. I am freaking out. Every time someone asks how we are doing with unpacking I casually answer, "Oh, we're getting there. One box at a time, right?" but I'm choking back tears.

I need calm in my life. I need calm and organization. I survive and thrive off knowing where things are and what to do next. Game plans, to-do lists, labels, categories...this is who I am. Ask me to describe myself? List maker! What's my best skill? Organizing! I'll never tell you I make a to-die-for chocolate cake or know an absurd amount about screen printing but damn if I can't alphabetize and hang my clothes in rainbow order with the best of them!

For the past three months I haven't been able to do this. We've been packing and cleaning and fixing. Everything has been everywhere. I don't know where the batteries or the toaster are. I can't find my card stock paper to print invites or my favorite pair of sweats. I don't know what colors I want to paint the walls or where I'm going to hang our diplomas.

I know it'll get better. Boxes will disappear and items will be put away. I will find the baby tylenol and my hair dryer. My linen closet will have neat stacks of towels and the pantry will have rows of canned goods.

This is what I repeat to myself every day:

But sometimes this is what happens:

five friday confessions

• Sometimes I like to doodle my married name over and over like I'm back in high school. I try and train myself to have a prettier signature.
• I wish I was more talented in the hair department. It's not that I don't want to wear it all cute, it's that it never turns out right and I end up throwing in the towel and pulling it back into a pony. 
• I was in such a rush the other morning that I completely forgot to put on deodorant. It's drove me crazy and I was very tempted to walk around with tissues under my arms. 
• I used to love watching almost all of the Real Housewives of... shows {I say almost because I never could get into the Atlanta one}, but the latest RHONY? I just can't. I get serious anxiety listening to them bicker. 
• I saw one of my coworkers writing a blog post during her lunch break yesterday and I'm dying to find her blog. I'm so nosey ha!