Nakita Grinie

Just when I began to worry that I hadn't made my point strongly enough, the following map made its way to the internet. The image and accompanying article illustrate my point very succinctly that we have a woefully pathetic system of support after birth for parents in this country. Even more so when you compare them to other industrialized nations. Here is the link so that you can read the article http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/05/24/489973/paid-maternity-leave-us/

...or actually, if I just had about $40,000 for a glorious down payment, then I'd be house hunting. But obviously I still like to look around and "check out the market" (a.k.a. live in a dream world for the moment).

So Milwaukee is known for their Bungalow Cottage homes. And the are RIGHT up my alley. Many were built in the 1920s and have tons of character. Unfortunately they have lots of original dark wood work---I know some folks love the wooden built-ins, it's not really our style. Nothing that a little paint can't fix, right?

I'll show you a few here so you can drool with me.

1. This one is absolutely adorable and the inside is pretty cute, too. It's a hair above our [imaginary] price range. Here is the full listing and here is a picture:

2. This one is my absolute FAVE from the outside, but the inside needs some major TLC, but the price reflects the work needed. Full listing here:
3. Totally squeezable bungalow here, a little high in price...and does it worry anyone else when they don't show too many pictures of the inside? Full listing here.
4. Another bung-meister with tons of windows and lots of dark wood. Full listing here.
AND YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE DREAM ZONE. YOU WILL NEVER VISIT NATE AND JULIA IN ONE OF THE FOLLOWING HOMES. [unless of course, you want to split the cost and be roommates!]
1. Woah, Nelly! Full list here.
2. Is this seriously a house? Oh wait, no...it's a MANSION. Look here:
3. And last but not least, the reason why I shouldn't look at homes in the $450k range. I think I'm in love. And you think I'm kidding. My love listed here. I just can't help it. I love looking at houses even though we can't afford one right now. When the time comes I think we'll look in the 200k range, just so you know. But aren't the Milwaukee Bungalows SO cute?!

Now my creative gears are turning in my head and I should probably go make a craft or something. [Sigh.]

Hello to all of you wonderful readers and Happy Monday!

This is sort of a housekeeping post today, but one that I think is extremely important.

As my blog has grown (and it is really, really growing quickly) I have become ever more distressed about the lack of comments on my posts. I know that some of the things I write are going to be a little on the edge, be a little uncomfortable, or inspire some emotional reactions....that is sort of the point. But, if no one has a chance to yell back at me then the whole "discussion process" is pointless and I might as well shut my laptop, climb back down off of my soapbox and call it a day.

With that being said, I have been looking into options, including changing platforms. After researching it though, as of right now, it makes sense to stay where I am if I can. But, my readers need to be able to weigh in.

Many of you find other ways to contact me with feedback: Facebook, email, text and in-person and I cherish your feedback, both positive and negative. Thank you for taking the time to track me down and caring enough to comment.

And so, without further ado, I present my new 3rd party commenting below. I have swapped out Blogger comments with Discus, and my Beta tester (ie: The Husband) told me that the process is fairly easy and his comment showed up quickly.

So, please, please, please give commenting another try......go back and weigh in on something that you missed out on or just post an "I'm here" in the comments so I know that they are working. I am eager to hear from you.

This blog is useless if we can't discuss the topics I am bringing up.

And again, thank you so much for supporting me in this endeavor. I am overwhelmed by how fast I have grown in such a short period of time and I have my readers to thank for that. You guys are the best....now hurry and pull up your own soapboxes and let's get discussing!

Ok, so here is the thing.....

I diligently spent all week working on this fantastic piece of analytic writing to present to you on Gamergate and the presence of male aggression. I have been very busy fact checking everything and making sure all my edits are grammatically correct.....then I actually re-read it and realized, "Holy Crap! I can't publish that!! I will be crucified on sight, or site....no, I think it is on sight... anyway...no self-respecting women's rights proponent can write what I just wrote and live to tell the tale. I have to do something else."

So, here it is Friday and I have nothing to offer up to you except the promise that maybe I can temper my insanity enough by NEXT Friday to be able to present this article I worked so hard on. Hopefully in a much more sane manner. Don't get me wrong, I totally believe in what I wrote, but let's just say it is not yet palatable for normal human viewers yet. Also, I need The Husband to read it because it is about gaming and if he is passionate about anything else in life (besides me and the kids) it is about gaming. I am not joking. He actually belongs to a group that lobbies political entities for various reasons to balance freedom of speech with responsibility in video games....or some such nonsense. He gets really, really into it, which is the main reason I wrote the article in the first place.

We were laying in bed earlier this week and he was watching some news story on the Gamergate phenomenon. Being genuinely checked out of the video game community (primarily from disinterest) I had to inquire what on earth they were talking about.

As an aside, I actually like playing video games. And I really like my husband. What I don't really understand is the passion for the industry that would require someone to join a group that lobbies on behalf of them....or, for that matter the level of dedication that would cause people to issue death threats because of video games (you will understand more after my original post is published if you aren't already familiar with it). But, in all fairness I never understood the soccer...or football player who shot people after losing, or the whole idea that the highest incidence of domestic violence occurs after the Super Bowl. I don't actually know if that is true, but it has been said often enough for me to assume some truth to it, and either way, it makes a good illustration of how I totally don't get that level of passion for a game.

Sorry, back to topic.

After hearing his very, very detailed explanation of everything involved I sat up in bed and declared, "What a great topic for my blog!!" I then questioned him extensively before going to sleep. I began work on it almost immediately the next morning. I was excited to share my deep, and potentially brilliant revelations on the whole thing. After I finished though, I realized there are some truths that are just too hard to swallow. And there are some truths that make you sound like a woman-hating maniac, or in other words I sort of forgot to add the whole "spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down" and thus I left myself looking like a raving lunatic, and possibly the new enemy for all women-kind. So, you are getting this rambling diatribe instead.

I think perhaps I may write what would be a potentially appropriate companion piece to the Gamergate discussion first. It is a post that has actually been heavy on my mind for a long, long time. I was planning on writing it two years ago before I took my hiatus. The problem is, and the reason I haven't written it yet, is that I am afraid it may make me a terribly unlikable person. After all, I may live by brutal honesty about myself, but sometimes polite exchanges are there to maintain a certain level of social civility. I am afraid that if I admit the truth I might be crucified for that as well.....

Now that I write this, I am thinking I WILL go ahead and write that article.... Look for true confessions of the heart next week. And also a spectacularly offensive article on Gamergate. After all, we aren't anything if we aren't true to ourselves, right?

With that, I wish you all a wonderful weekend full of warm fuzzy family moments. I hope you are feeling so warm and fuzzy by Monday that you are willing to look past the insanity I will present to you next week and continue to stick with me.

It's time to officially show you the yellow crib! I think this will be my last nursery update before baby boy is born, and then I can really give you a tour. Still trying to be strategic about showing photos without his name in them;)

As a reminder: we found this (originally) white Jenny-Lind style crib on Craigslist for $40, back in 2009 when I was pregnant with Truman. He used the crib for almost two years while it was white. Then Cecelia got to use the crib after I spent many-an-hour painting it pink. And now? Same crib, third time around, but I went with a bright yellow for mister man. Something about using the same crib for every baby, but making it a little different each time makes me abnormally happy.

And of course, I have Pinterest to thank/blame for my love of painting all things in a nursery.

Here we go!


As I'm typing out this 'How To' post, I'm reading back over my 'pink crib' post. It still boggles my mind to see the stats on that particular post---over 40,000 views? Talk about some pressure to write this in a way that makes sense and is just as helpful. I will have a few tips/tidbits/thoughts at the end.

THE SUPPLIES:
-sandpaper
-multi-purpose, every day cleaner
-Adhesion Primer from Sherwin Williams
-Wagner HVLP paint gun
-Behr semi-gloss wall paint (Saffron Thread color), paint brushes, and patience
-Water based MinWax polyurethane, paint brush, and more patience
-drill or a handy husband


1. The crib was already taken apart this time around, but I had Nate remove all of the hardware. Instead of taking pictures of all of the little pieces/screws to remember how they all fit together, I simply said, 'Make sure you can put it back together.' Spatial relations are beyond me. Thank you, husband.

2. I lightly sanded the pink paint and tried not to feel too sad about seeing it scuff up. It was in great condition and seriously did not chip at all when Cecelia used it. Then I cleaned the whole crib with regular Green Works multi-purpose cleaner. I didn't spend as much prep time this second time around because the pink paint was in great shape compared to the original white paint before it. Plus, I knew that I was going to use my most favorite primer that requires no sanding which made me feel very lax about this prep part.

3. Primer time: I am seriously obsessed with the Adhesion Primer from Sherwin Williams. Unfortunately, they don't even make this can anymore but according to the guy at the store, people are really missing it because it's the best. It will stick to pretty much any clean surface and it's water based, so I didn't have to worry about questionable fumes for my pregnant self. (Side note: my OB has always said that painting with decent circulation in the room is totally fine). I wanted to use our Wagner spray gun for the entire process because it was so easy last time.


Bye bye, PINK!






4. In the middle of my first coat of primer, I had to switch out between one can of primer that was almost finished, to a brand new can I hadn't opened before during all of the wood-trim painting inside of our house. I should have taken the 2 year old can right to Sherwin Williams to have them shake it up for me but I was impatient, and just tried to stir the heck out of it. Well, as I continued on with the first coat of primer on the backside of the crib, I realized it was super watery and drippy. And not covering very well. And then the spray gun kept getting clogged and life was just not good.

So I finished up the first coat the best I could and once it dried, I knew I had a mess on my hands. BLECH. I took the can to SW and had him shake it up for me, and he assured me that although you usually only need one coat, in this case I could just do a fresh coat of primer on top of the watery stuff and I'd be good to go. So I tried to sand off a few of the bigger drips and then HAND PAINTED another coat of primer on the problem areas. This is when I decided I didn't trust my paint gun anymore since it was kind of a pain for the primer anyway. And thus, hand painting became my way.

Total: 1.5 coats of primer, first with a gun and the other 'half' by hand, just to cover up the thinner areas of primer from before.

5. FINALLY time to pick my yellow paint! I brought in a leaf decal to Home Depot and Truman helped me select the perfect shade. We went with Saffron Thread, and I got it in semi-gloss like I always do for furniture. Last time for the pink crib, I was told a quart would be enough. But since I used the paint gun, I was truly scraping paint out of the can by the end. So this time I splurged and got a full gallon but of course, didn't end up needing even 1/4 of it. Of course.


6. I could have tried the spray gun again but it just made me nervous and like I couldn't quite control the process as well. Plus it was too cold to be out in the garage, so I set up shop in the basement and started at this baby with a brush.







I did two full coats of yellow paint by hand, and then a few extra touch ups after that. So I will say 2.5 coats of yellow paint;) So many nooks and crannies! It's beautiful but it really did suck and require substantial patience.

7. Polyurethane time. Haaaaaaaate this part so much, since this is when I just want to be totally finished. I actually had Nate reassemble the entire crib in the nursery first, without poly, to see if it looked shiny enough. It DID look great and maybe even better than the pink paint before it, but I could tell it needed the added protection of poly to really seal off the paint to prevent chips. I figured I should poly it to be extra safe even though none of my kids have ever chewed on this crib. I admit I only did one coat and called it 'good enough'. If baby boy ends up chewing the crib we will just have to do a rail protector or something. See more discussion below regarding the 'safety' of painting a crib.

8. Final Results!! Nice and glossy and fairly smooth considering how many coats are on this baby now.











So to review:
-pink crib=lots of cleaning to prep, yellow crib=not so much (pink was in better shape than original white)
-pink crib=1 coat of spray can primer, yellow crib=1.5 coats of Adhesion Primer with spray gun
-pink crib=2-3 coats of pink paint mostly with gun, yellow crib=2.5 coats of yellow paint all by hand
-pink crib=3 coats of Poly by hand, yellow crib=1 coat of poly by hand.

Total coats of new paint on pink crib=7 including poly (not including original white factory stuff)
Total coats of new paint on yellow crib=5 including poly. But that's on TOP of all of the pink and previous white! Lots of paint on this baby right now.

All of the cribs in each of the nurseries. Yes, we had a bumper for Truman until it was outlawed and then it came down. Actually I am not sure he ever slept in the crib with the bumper as it was more for show anyway and neither of the kids actually sleep in their own bed for many months. Plus those quilts were not on the crib when the babies slept there (third quilt on it's way from GoGo!). And yes, this is actually a drop side crib but we have added metal parts from the manufacturer to keep the sides from falling down. Scandalous, I know! I feel very scandalous in general with this post (a picture of a crib bumper, drop sides, and a toxic painted crib!)



My take on the 'safety' of painting a crib, since that tends to be a hot topic on Pinterest: I used water based polyurethane to seal off and protect the water based wall paint underneath. I assume that is much better than using an oil based paint or poly, but it was also just safer for me to use while pregnant anyway. In my mind, as long as the paint doesn't chip off into the kid's mouth it is probably not the worst thing in the world for them to bite. So my goal was to make sure this paint job remains in tact, like the pink paint did so well for Cecelia.

Like I said before, neither of my kids has ever chewed on this crib. If this third baby is a chewer, we will have to use some sort of rail protector....or just move him into a big bed? Or get him out of the crib before he starts to gnaw? I don't know, I can't get too worked up about it. I figure that chewing on a 'factory painted' crib is probably just as bad as chewing on one that I painted myself. What is the difference, really? Are they using a completely non-toxic paint without any chemicals in the factory paint jobs? I doubt it unless you are paying big, big bucks for a environmentally friendly crib. Maybe I'm just not one to be overly concerned with chemicals, which may or may not be a good thing about me as a mom. Maybe you are concerned with chemicals and a painted crib, and that is fine, too!

That said, I have also seen comments on Pinterest about researching non-toxic, 'totally safe' paints for this project. I'm sure that would work just as well as long as they can get you the color you like! I just did it with the above steps because that is what worked for me in the past (with a few minor tweaks), but obviously there are many many ways to paint a crib.

I think most of them would be 100% easier if wine were involved, however. :)

This also makes me more adventurous with my outfits, pairing things together I normally wouldn't and it usually turns out well!  I wish I had the motivation to do this for the work week...
I just packed for my family vacation to Key West tonight and here are some of my outfits inspiration.  We will see if any get worn, and I still packed 800 t shirts and tank tops, but I feel prepared in case I want to look put together!

Inspiration

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