Craigslist brings the lols

Being a first time mom to be doesn't mean that I want to buy everything brand new.  I've been looking on several websites for great deals, trying to be as frugal as I can be.   One site that leaves me frustrated at times is Craig's List.   The hubby and I have found several deals on CL in the past including our stove, a furniture dolly,  the hubby's motorcycles, and the list goes on.  I don't know if I am clicking on the wrong ads but I have found some real laughable listings.

 One of the examples is a listing for a crib for $300.  I click on the link, look at the picture and decided to see if this crib is actually worth that much new.  After a little google-fu I discover that the crib was one of the cribs affected by the 2010 recall because it was unsafe.  No where in the ad did it list that they have  installed one of the immobilization kits.  I sent them a message asking if they complied with recall before listing the crib. A day or two later I received an answer back from the seller saying thanks for the interest in the crib but it has sold.   Not even a week later I saw the same crib listed again, but for $25 less and using the same exact picture from the first ad.  I debated in my head to flag the ad and post a Re: ad informing people that this crib could be dangerous.  Part of me wanted to be a safety advocate and the other part of me felt like hopefully people would be smart enough to do their homework like I did.  In the end I decided it wouldn't be worth my time to keep chasing down the crib rip off artist.   It's not worth me getting my panties in a bunch over this fool, and if they get the amount that they want to sell the crib for more power to them.

In the meantime, the great crib search is still on.  Wish me luck!

Embracing pink

I was talking to a coworker today about how I've been trying to avoid being that cliche "pink buying mom" but after going shopping, I was in pink overload.   He told me to embrace the pink, some of these outfits will be cherished one day.  Sometimes it just takes me a voice of reason to come to my senses.  So here we go, pinking it up!

Turtles & kitties, oh my!

According to several sources, the baby is now 22 weeks and the size of a large mango, 11.5 inches.  I was feeling all 11.5 inches today as she was pushing up against my ribcage.  Oh the joys of being short waisted! :-p

Houston, we have a color palette!

After a bit of going back and forth on what to do about the colors of the walls, I finally settled on a wall color.   *drumroll*  The walls will be Windwood Spring, which is a gorgeous blue color.  I know what you may be thinking, "Amy, you love pink, why not do a subtle shade of blush pink because the baby's a girl?"  Well, here's my train of thought,  I wanted something different and something she could grow with while not being too "nursery like."  Perhaps I've been watching too much Sarah Richardson on HGTV, I don't know, but what I do know is that while I want the kitschy turtles and woodland animals, I want a room that I will be comfortable in as well.

The walls at the moment are a pink nightmare consisting of hot pink and pepto-bismol pink. There is no way that I would subject the baby to these colors.  I picked out some clothes the other day, and while I will admit they have some hot pink in them, it's not over powering like the room is at the moment.

Just a sneak peak of the pepto-bismol nightmare.

I am hoping that by going with the blue and using bright fun colors as accents it will help to not only give the room an airy feel, the color scheme will also help to brighten it up and make the space seem larger.  Eventually we will be removing the builder standard oak stained white pine moldings and replacing it with white molding and crown molding and painting the window frames white as well.

Next task, finding the perfect chair to turn into a glider with out it looking like the stereotypical cliche nursery glider on a budget.

It's a girl!

Our first child is a girl!  It also looks like she's going to be tall or she's going to be blessed with mommy's short torso as well.

19 weeks

 

 So this what 19 weeks looks like.   Totally crazy to think the baby is the size of a 6 inch heirloom tomato.  Besides surviving morning sickness, this is the first time I've truly *felt* pregnant. Next Wednesday is the big day, we find out who is stowing away in my belly, boy or girl.  The majority opinion of my work friends is that the baby is a girl.  We'll see if they're right.

This is the Droid you are looking for

I've had my phone for a little over 4 months now, and even though there are a few things I miss about my Crackberry, I think I've fallen in love.  The next generation of the Droid X will be coming out in a few months, but unlike when I owned my Storm, I am not longing for the time when I can upgrade my phone to get here so I can get rid of a POS. I thought I'd  take time to list a few of my favorite aps available on the Android Market and talk a bit about them.

•  Vignette - iPhone users have instagr.am which is pretty nifty in it's own right.  Vignette has 68 different photo effects and 56 frames available to chose from.  I've been having a lot of fun playing with the Polaroid and photobooth features. Once the baby gets here I know I am  going to be a photo-taking fool!
• Google Maps with Navigation -  Surprisingly Verizon didn't eliminate the ability to use this application in favor of Verizon Navigator.  Verizon has been notorious for crippling their products so you can't utilize the phone's total functionality.  I've ditched using my husband's gps in favor of using the Google Navigation system.  
• Amazon.com - I constantly find myself using the barcode scanner feature while out shopping to see if Amazon has the item for less.  We have Amazon Prime, so with the free two day shipping, not buying an item that day isn't such a big deal. I have been in scanning over-drive since beginning to price out baby items.  I just wish I could figure out a way to silence the scanner's beep so no one will hear what I'm up to.
• Beautiful Widgets - One of the things I missed the most about switching from Blackberry to Android was losing BerryWeather. Beautiful Widgets comes very close. My only real complaint is that to look at the weather radar, the application opens up a browser window instead of performing the function in the app.
• Advanced Task Killer - I haven't had to do any battery pulls since buying my droid which was a daily, if not more occurrence with my Storm.  The task killer enables you to "kill" applications you may not be using to free up memory. 
• Baby Bump Pregnancy Pro -  What size is the baby this week?  Is it an apple, an eggplant, or perhaps an heirloom tomato?  Not only does this application tell you that, but gives you daily and weekly things to think about, has illustrations on where the baby and uterus are in relation to the mother's body and what the baby looks like that week, and has a "kick counter" so you can measure how often the baby kicks.  I feel that this would not be a stand alone item for an expecting parent, but is great in conjunction with reading pregnancy books.

I decided against listing the games I have installed on my phone because I felt the addictiveness of Angry Birds and Tetris spoke for themselves,  I am always on the look-out for new apps to try, so if anyone has any suggestions, let me know!

Baby talk

Even though we don't know the sex of the baby yet, it's never too early to think about color.  I've been looking all over the web for inspiration for the baby's room; there are so many cool ideas out there for a turtle/woodland themed nursery.  I can't even begin to list how many cool things I've found on  Etsy and Amazon.com.

1. Turtle lamp - Carter's Laguna collection,  amazon.com.
2. Tree bookcase - by Shawn Soh.  At $2500, this is way out of my price range. Need to figure out a way to fabricate this for less!
3. Bilingual eco wall cards #'s 1-10, by Art and Philanthropy on Etsy.
4. personalized applique name pillow, by Whimsy Co. on Etsy.

I've been trying to figure out a way to make the bookcase out mdf or a similar material. The original bookcase is made out of powder-coated metal but there has to be a way to make it more child friendly and out of wood.

Oh, to my one reader, I finally updated so you would have something, even though it's small, to read.   Thanks for kicking me in the butt to update. ;-)  You know who you are.