Scarface 2

Most of you have heard this story, but I decided for posterity's sake to post a picture of my stitches. In the past two weeks I've had two carcinomas removed from my forehead. The first was just in my hair line and you can't even see the scar in this picture, but in real life it is still puffy and red. Its on the right side. I had those 12 stitches out last week. I have the second set of stitches (the ones in the middle of my forehead) out tomorrow morning.

 

I noticed the first itchy red spot in late November or early December and asked my obstetrician what she thought. At the time I thought it was the scar from the carcinoma I had removed three years ago (see: http://teammakas.blogspot.com/2013/02/scarface.html ) . We agreed I should go to my dermatologist and have it looked at. Turns out it wasn't the old scar, but a new carcinoma. So we scheduled removal for two weeks ago. By the time I went for that surgery, a new one had popped up on my forehead. He biopsied it to confirm and I had that one removed last Tuesday. Its been annoying and added to my discomfort and general feeling unattractive at the end of this pregnancy, but I know I'll be glad to have gotten these out of the way before the baby and not be dealing with it next month!

Just add baby

The nursery isn't the only place in the house where signs of readiness for baby are present. The bassinet is in the bedroom, the high chair is in the kitchen (we know he won't need that for awhile), we've got a stroller parked in the living room, and we just installed the car seat in the car!

And of course we completed our three-part childbirth class at the hospital. Here is Miran practicing with the doll. this picture was taken shortly before he dropped it on the floor while trying to change its diaper. We're glad he got that out of system with the plastic baby!

The Nursery!

Here is how the room looked for the first month or so that we lived in the house. Full of boxes and pieces of unassembled furniture.

And here are a few in progress pictures ... prepping for painting, painting everything, including the sashes, and assembling new furniture. We also replaced the vents and painted inside the closet.

And finally, the big reveal ... which shows the dresser we got from the house in Arlington with the drawer fronts painted white and new hardware, the new crib (thanks Daddy!), a new bookcase and side table, and the sofa / guest bed we had in our office at the last house. Of course there are lots of new accessories - including wall art, pillows and a rug. And he has a nice starter collection of toys and books on his bookcase.

Master Bedroom Nearly Done

Our main focus in December was on our bedroom, which we hoped to get nearly done so we had an end of the day sanctuary where we couldn't look around and see projects that needed to be done. Its not quite there yet (at least for me), but it is way closer than other space in our house.

Here are four before shots showing the room as it was for the first few weeks in the house.

So the first step was painting the closets so we could unpack the boxes of clothes and empty the room so that it could be painted and there was room for the furniture. We have two small walk in closets which is a huge increase in clothes storage space for us over our last master bedroom. Miran did most of the work here and the closets looked so fresh and clean all painted in our normal gray walls with white trim scheme.

Our bedroom also has turned out to be a room that is almost completely full of new things, which has been fun. It does seem I like to reinvent things and redecorate every few years. We got a set of two new dressers and two new night stands, which luck for us Dad came to visit and assembled for us (I seem to have startled him taking this action shot). They sat in the living room for a few weeks waiting for space to be made in the bedroom.

Once the closets were unpacked we could access the walls and got the walls and baseboards and door frames painted.

So we slept on a mattress on the floor of our new bedroom for an entire month (well truthfully we were in Florida seven of those nights), but we finally we assembled everything on New Years Day. That included moving in the dressers and nightstands Dad had assembled as well as putting together the bed frame we bought. The bedding is new as well, but we used the lamp and rug that were in our office in the old house. So here is what the room looks like now:

Projects left to do in the bedroom include painting the window surrounds and sashes, painting the doors, replacing the ceiling fan, maybe getting a small chair for the corner, hanging pictures and mirror, and deciding about the window treatments. But we are both happy with how spacious the room feels, how much storage we have for clothes, and of course how pretty it looks with the new stuff.

Kitchen In Progress

So I finally found a minute to download photos and start some blog posts about the new house. First I'll show you the progress we've made in the kitchen so far. We haven't done much, but an important first step was painting inside the cabinets so that we could put the food and dishes and everything else away.

So here is the before shot of the interior of the cabinets on the fridge/pantry wall.

Fortunately, Mommy came to help with this project as in my present condition I would never have been able to get into the backs of the upper and lowermost cabinets. I focused on the midrange and she did all the hard stretching!

Afterwards it looked great with the white shelves and green back wall. It is fresher and cleaner than before and everything is much easier to see inside than against the dark brown background.

So that all happened mid-December and I got the kitchen almost completely put away and it has been functional for the past few weeks.

Yesterday there was another big development in the kitchen - the arrival of the fridge we ordered a month ago. That was the most important appliance for both us because the one that came with the house was small, really dingy, and it was way to hard to go back to a freezer on the top after you've had a french door fridge!

The new fridge was delivered about 3:00 and Miran and his friend/colleague from work Virag moved the old fridge out, took the doors off (both the new fridge and the house), moved the new one inside, and reassembled it. We haven't hooked up the water and ice machine yet because we decided to replace the very old looking pipe behind the fridge first. Hopefully we'll get to Home Depot and get new pipe tubing this week-end.

We are both quite thrilled with the new fridge and glad we made a few splurges - most importantly that we got the counter depth one, which was key for the fridge's walkway location. Plus it looks better not sticking out 6 more inches. It is definitely shallower inside, but you can never see/reach the stuff in the way back anyway, so now there is no way back. We also opted for the middle drawer, which can be set at a separate temperature. We are keeping it warmer and using it for bread and tomatoes and fruit, which are better stored not as cold as the rest of the fridge stuff. And the final new feature is the so called black stainless finish. Its not a shiny stainless steel, but rather a very dark charcoal color. We both thought it was really elegant and striking, and the ads claim it shows fingerprints less than regular stainless, so we'll see.

So here is the same fridge/pantry wall now! There is still a lot left to do, like painting all the outside of the cabinets (as a temporary solution until we can replace them) and replacing the hardware and other ancient appliances.

And to match the earlier images, here is an open door shot of the kitchen today. The big pantry with the u-shaped shelves is great for access.