The Chronicles of Vienna's Hair: Volume X

A positively RIVETING new development...

PIGTAILS!

But I probably won't keep her hair like this often.

I imagine it would make it exceedingly difficult having to discipline someone so precious.

One Down

With a little less than 10 weeks to go before this baby makes his way out of me, I've got a few projects that I'd like to get done in my remaining time. 

You know, before I have to start squeezing in showers on a monthly basis, as opposed to the oh-so-frequent weekly basis it is now.

One thing on my list was to organize my little craft area upstairs in our room. 

Between the painting, crocheting, jewelry making, scrap booking, glue gunning, card making, gift wrapping, and all of the other ridiculous endeavors I randomly become interested in, there is an unorganized plethora of miscellaneous crap that is overflowing out of the built-in book shelf at the entrance of our room.

It looked like this:

Uhh... Yikes?

This is when you very well could be wondering if I "doctored" this area up a bit before taking this picture. You know, for effect.

And let me tell you...I wish I had.

Because what kind of person is THIS FLIPPIN' MESSY?

Good grief.

Anywho! Yesterday afternoon my smokin' hot husband took his princess out on a little date. Don't ask me how deep the conversation went between them, because honestly...that was not my concern.

All I cared about was that I had the house to myself.

ALL TO MYSELF.

For, like...AN HOUR!

And I knew exactly what I was going to do with this short but precious time to my lonesome.

I was going to tackle my craft area.

And boy, did I.

Mmmm...  Isn't it pretty?

Love me some organization!

The chaos is no more, and the fifty dozen little trinkets, nick-nacks, and scraps all now have homes. 

Even if their new home is the trash...it's a home.

(Raise your hand if you love throwing crap away! WooHoo!)

I picked up a few extra photo boxes that were on sale at Michael's on friday night, and that really helped me get some structure to this area. And I still need a couple plastic bins to contain designated hobbies (never underestimate the danger that loose beads can be to your sanity), but overall I'm quite pleased with how accessibly manageable it is now.

Ah, the sense of restoring order to something in your world is utterly therapeutic.

I highly recommend going and cleaning out a drawer or something just to get this feeling of accomplishment.

Well...unless you're like in the Peace Corps or save puppies for living, then I guess you don't really need that.

But since I, for one, am totally addicted to it...

 I will keep you updated on my list as I get things done, I'm sure my next celebratory post won't be too long from now.

Breakfast at The Johnsons

No one should be this stinkin' messy first thing in the morning.

But hey, at least she's happy, right?

A Tale Of A Dress

As you might have read previously, a couple weeks ago we took a trip out to Colorado for Luke's brothers wedding.

 And as it always goes with weddings, you need something appropriate to wear for such an occasion. 

.

...Which, if you're a woman, you know can be an enormous challenge in and of itself.

And as it happens, this particular instance of finding a suitable dress to wear for this event was...well, just plain ridiculous.

Here's what happened.

To begin, I will spare you a rant about how pathetically scarce the available selections are for any maternity formalwear out there, and just tell you that my search for a dress was definitely quite discouraging and exhausting.

I mean, DO PREGNANT PEOPLE NOT EVER GO TO WEDDINGS OR WHAT?!

*deep breath* 

Sorry.

..I'm fine.

Moving on.

So basically, unless you're willing to drop 200 bucks on a few yards of fabric that you'll wear/fit into/use exactly ONCE in your life...you're kind of out of luck.

And I'm just not that kinda gal.

However, Target had a few maternity options online that were affordable and had potential to be super cute. My only beef with online shopping is that you can't try it on. 

Which is a major gamble, particular when your once lovely, sensuous body now feels and looks more like this:

...Yeah.

This is why I never leave the house.

Anywho, even though I hate gambling, after months of searching in stores and other websites with no luck, I decided to go ahead and try this one:

ADORABLE, right?

I just loved the color and the precious rosettes that made up the one shoulder. Absolutely darling.

And only for $40, I was definitely getting excited.

It came in the mail, I tried it on, still loving the color and the style.... but no matter how much I adjusted the fitting, it was JUST BARELY off and unable to fit in one area.

See, what happens when you become a walking, talking cocoon is that in addition to the large, round obstruction taking over your midsection...the rest of your body feels the need to keep up with the change too. In fun, swollen, jiggly ways.

(See previous picture above.)

Basically certain parts of my *ahem* feminine figure, had become a little too..*ahem* feminine, for this particular dress.

*Ahem*.

And getting one size up would have just made me look like I was drowning in a circus tent.

So for a couple days, I stared at it hung up in my closet, emotionally went through the 5 Stages of Grief, until I had reached acceptance that it was time to just let it go and send it back.

Major bummer.

And with a just a couple weeks left before leaving on our trip, I had to find something, and find it fast.

My second, third, fourth, and fifth choices were all either unavailable in my size or color. Awesome.

But it did eventually bring me to this one.

Not bad, right?

Definitely not as romantic as my first choice, but still cute nonetheless.

And it was the same price.

I got it, tried it on, and it fit.

The color was pretty, and it draped over my beached whale-esque figure in non-frightening ways, so whatever, it was going to work!

 When you're out of time and options, you can only be so picky.

Plus, it's not like I was the one getting married. 

Who cares what I wear, as long as I don't show up in my dingy yoga pants, right?

SO, fast forward to 3 days before the wedding.

Were in Colorado, hanging out in our hotel room, on that thursday night. It had been a weird, intense, overall just awful evening and we were absolutely emotionally and physically exhausted.

While Luke was playing with Vienna on the bed, I decided to try on my dress again, and figure out which of the couple pairs of shoes I had thrown in my suitcase the week before would work best with it.

I'm in the bathroom in the front of the mirror, when all of the sudden I hear a loud thud followed by piercing screams. 

While running out of the bathroom to see what on earth had happened, the door hinge catches on my dress and RIPS A HUGE HOLE IN THE FRONT OF IT.

For. The. Love.

Turned out Vienna had pulled a sneaky, ninja-like move past Luke and dove head-first off of the bed.

I held and rocked her while she screamed and the big, red welt slowly appeared on her forehead.

Then we give her some Tylenol for the massive headache she's about to have, only for her to gag on it mid-cry and spit it up all over the torn dress that I'm still wearing.

Awesome.

I mean, people... what a night!

Like a moldy cherry on top of a melted sunday.

Once Vienna was done with the broadway production of expressing her pain, and I had showed Luke the ways in which my dress was now ruined... I just started laughing.

And couldn't stop.

Because what else was there to do?!

Or at least that's what I asked Luke who stared at me with deep concern while I cracked up in sheer disbelief at all of this.

Just ridiculous.

Anyway, the next day, we went to a mall, and after searching through multiple stores and dealing with a few extremely rude and incompetent sales clerks(just what I needed at the time), I finally found a couple of options to try on in the regular womens dress section of JCPenney.

Which is where I landed on a little black and white polka dot number.

It wasn't an actual maternity dress, but it had that ruffled trim on both sides of the waist that basically gave my huge stomach room to jut out the way it does, without making the rest of the dress fit weird.

And it was on sale for $30.

Sold!

I finally had a dress (again) and only had to get through one more day without any outrageous accidents before I would hopefully wear it to the wedding.

And even though, after everything I had gone through, I was seriously tempted to request that it be kept in the hotel safe for those 36 hours, it surprisingly made it to the big day, unscathed.

Here is a random picture a friend happened to take that shows the belly shot.

Bottom line: it worked.

I hadn't originally wanted to wear anything black, because I knew that the wedding colors were gray and yellow, and didn't want to be a bold contrast amongst the pretty, soft neutrals in the whopping two pictures I would be in...but it didn't take me long to be praising the heavens, in utter gratitude, for what I ended up in.

Why?

Because at the reception, they served Barbecue.

That's right. BARBECUE.

As in, the most delicious but disastrous food you could ever eat, let alone, FEED A TODDLER.

So ironically enough, with Vienna sitting on my lap, my purple dress would have been ruined anyway! HA!

All in all, I ended up feeling comfy, cute, clean and in desperate need of a stiff drink.

Which other than that last unfortunate part, is the best I could ask for, considering all the one-after-another disasters that it took to get me there.

And I came out with a great dress that I can wear again, even when I'm not pregnant!

Not that I'm planning on ever going to another wedding again in my whole life.

Just kidding.

Kind of.