Archives for the 'Things I want' Category
What fun!
Izzy has a few plastic monstrosities and other essential items that are wonderful distractions. If it weren’t for these things, I wouldn’t be able to shower, cook dinner or eat. Everyday she works the circuit. Playmat, activity rocker, swing, exersaucer. Repeat. Unfortunately, she is out growing some of these items. I was beginning to panic at the idea of losing such awesome baby keepers, but I found the next great distractatron. Behold, the indoor swing set.
I am so buying this for her first birthday.
Things we need/want to buy for the new apartment.
Portable Dishwasher
Rugs
Toaster Oven
Kitchen Island
Glass Food Storage Containers
Sound Absorbing Window Shades
Sofa Bed
Crib*
Changing Table*
Shower Curtain*
Tall Cat Tree
Dining Room Table*
Also need to reupholster the following pieces of furniture:
Couch
Deco Chair
Mini Rocking Chair
*Still looking for the right item.
Sweet Dreams
I am totally going to buy this bunk bed for Izzy when she’s older. There is room for a bunk bed in the “attic”portion of the house. It looks like it would be such an awesome little reading nook. It will also be pretty great when she has a sleep over with a friend.
Mitch hates it! He thinks it is completely tacky. I agree the one in the photo is tacky, but you can buy it unpainted and paint it yourself. I think it would be awesome to paint it to look like one of the Painted Ladies. He doesn’t think Isadoa will like it. What does Mitch know? He’s such a guy.
Art for the new apartment.
A few years ago, Mitch and I were walking down Geary Street and I spotted a painting in one of the gallery windows that I absolutely fell in love with. It was a portrait of a monkey in a lovely party dress that was just about to get beaned in the noggin by an olive by Donald Roller Wilson. We walked by that painting many times, and each time we stopped to admire it. One day, we decided to go in to the gallery an inquire about the price of the painting. We figured if it was at price point we felt we could afford, we’d buy it. At the time, we knew nothing about the artist. When the gallery worker told us the price ($15,000!), we told him we’d think about it and we high-tailed it out of there.
I still think about that painting every now and then because it makes me laugh.
Sometimes, you just gotta love China and their complete disregard for copyrighted material and eBay for making distribution easy. Check these out!
This is the reproduction of the painting I have coveted for many, many years. I just might have to buy it.*
*Still trying to sort through the ethical implications of supporting someone who blatantly stole someone else’s work and whether I can live with it.
We’re moving on up.
Er…more like moving on over since we’re already on the top floor. We finally got word that we can have the two bedroom apartment down the hall. It has been painted, and they’re working on some renovations in the kitchen and bathroom. We’re also going to get a full-sized refrigerator to be placed in the giant pantry (Curses to the mini fridge we’ve been using for years).
Our building caretaker is currently on his annual month-long vacation to St. Petersburg, so most of the work has come to a halt during his absence. As soon as Andrei is back, he’ll finish up the work, and we should be able to move in late this month or early next month.
We’re so excited to have more space! We have fantasized about living in that apartment for years because it is the best two bedroom in our building. It is the only other apartment we ever could have considered living in because we currently live in the best one bedroom apartment in our building.
I would like to get in there and measure the rooms so I can draw the layout and figure out how I’m going to place our current furniture. I have also been doing some browsing online and found a few things that I want to purchase. I am just dying to nest!
I already purchased this Dutailier glider/recliner, but it hasn’t been delivered yet.
I don’t think our kitchen renovations are going to include a dishwasher. If not, I want to get this portable Whirlpool:
I picked this model over the Kenmore because the Whirlpool model has a locking system so it can’t be opened easily once it’s started and it has a food disposal system. It also has a butcher block counter top that will come in so very handy in my kitchen as it lacks counter space. It will be such a relief to not have to do dishes by hand any longer.
I also want to get this pretty awesome couch from Pottery Barn Teen for Izzy’s room:
I like it because it converts into a full sized bed. When we have guests, they can sleep on the fold out couch and Izzy can sleep in our room. It’s on sale right now, and it looks like they’re already out of the brown and black versions, which is fine by me because I did want the colorful striped version. I think the color scheme will go great with the painting that Dan gave us for Izzy’s room. I just can’t order it now since we don’t know when we’re moving in. I can’t have it arrive and try to cram it in to our current place. That just won’t do. I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will still be available when I have a place to put it.
The last piece of furniture I want to get is a dining room table. I am so excited that we’ll have room for a table. We have been eating our meals on the couch or at our desks because those are the only spaces available in our current place. I still haven’t found exactly what I want. I do know that I want something that is expandable, preferably with self contained extensions, but I’ll deal with leaves if I have to. I am looking forward to hosting dinner parties again!
Wendy 3 | Target 0
Our first big adventure to Target was a success!
1) Isadora slept the entire time we were shopping. Not a single fuss.
2) She didn’t dirty her diaper until we got home. Yay!
3) I got 10% off nearly my entire purchase.
You see, I received a coupon for 10% of anything that was on my baby registry so when we showed up at the store, I got a registration gun and scanned everything that went into the cart–tons of baby items we still needed, underwear and a hat for Mitch, batteries, people food, pet food, etc.
The clerk was having problems entering the coupon in the register and called a manager over for help. The manager got mad and snippy at me because I put “non-baby” items on the baby registry.
She told me that the baby did not need a Fedora. I thought that was a very judgmental statement and replied, “she most certainly does too need a Fedora. She thinks her daddy looks really cute in it.” The manager also argued against the batteries. I told her that a baby swing takes 6 batteries and eats them like candy–they are absolutely baby related. And so the conversation went with each and every item–her judgment and my justification
Eventually she just stopped questioning, but she kept muttering that I was only supposed have baby items on my registry. I told her that was not my problem. I scanned items and the gun accepted them. The coupon clearly stated “Come in to the store and add items to your registry for 10% off your shopping all day.” Notice how baby is no where to be seen before items?
I also explained to her that when I registered for my wedding at Target, I added things I would actually use like toilet paper, cat litter and trash bags. I had I nice set of dishes and cookware already, so I certainly didn’t need more. Not your typical wedding registry fare, but I only put things that we needed on the wedding registry. With that, she gave the go ahead to give 10% off my entire cart.
The funny thing is, she was mad because she had to go line by line for every item I bought to give the 10% discount instead of just giving 10% off the final total. Then she barked at me, “You know, you’re going to end up getting a much bigger discount because I have to do the entries this way.” I looked at Mitch; he looked at me and we both shrugged our shoulders.
Walking out to the car, Mitch started shaking his head and said, “she obviously doesn’t understand the transitive properties of multiplication and addition.”
Ya think?
When I got to the car, I took a closer look at the receipt. The manager cheated me out of about $10 worth of discounts. She flat out refused to give me a discount on the 4 pack of Red Bull. How does she not see that is absolutely baby related!? How else is Mitch going to stay up through the night with the baby so I can get some much needed sleep!
It’s a beautiful day to go for a test drive.
We’re finally going to go test drive a Prius today.
We’re having a hard time trying to decide whether we should actually buy a car. Should it be new or used? Regular or hybrid? It’s amazing how hard of a time Mitch and I have making a commitment to purchase consumer goods, but when it came time to commit to marriage and now a family, that was a piece of cake.
Stroller Storage
We’re hoping to move into a larger apartment in our building at some point this year. In the meantime, we’re going to make due with the space in our current place. We love our apartment and it’s been perfect for two people, but it’s going to be a bit cramped when Peanut arrives along with all the accoutrement that we’ll need.
I found this brilliant storage hook for strollers:
We’ll definitely need one of these.
I hope it’s not covered in lead paint.
We received some pretty awesome hand-me-downs lately, so I decided to splurge on something totally impractical. I bought this for Peanut today:
I’ve been drooling over it for months. I noticed it was on sale at babystyle, plus I found an online coupon that gave me another $10 off and shipping was only $5. I just couldn’t pass it up!
Back to basics.
With all the issues related to plastic use these days, I’d like to try to avoid using anything made of plastic–food/drink containers, toys, etc. It’s just so hard to find food items packaged in glass these days. I think the last time I saw a glass jar of mayonnaise was in 1998. Although I haven’t bought any yet, I also see that baby food is no longer packaged in jars, but in plastic containers. Bummer.
Well, I won’t have to worry about that for a while since I’ll be breast feeding. Because I’ll be going back to work, we’ll still need to use bottles to feed Peanut since Mitch’s milking system is offline. I found these great looking glass bottles at gobabylife:
I’d also like to get these stainless steel sippy cups by Kid Basix:
