We’re breathing a little easier these days now that the house is slowly turning into a more livable space. And we’re feeling a lot less guilty about going out and enjoying ourselves. On Friday night, Chris and I did dinner downtown at Haddingtons. Despite it being a bit pricier than we expected, the food ended up being really good and it was a really nice date. We followed it up with a great ACL after-show at La Zona Rosa. We stopped going to ACL a few years ago when we discovered that SXSW was countless times better, but got the best of both worlds that night with Punch Brothers and Trampled by Turtles in a nice intimate venue with great sound. It was a good way to enjoy some quality music without the nuisances and hefty costs of the somewhat overrated ACL festival. Apparently living in Austin for so long has made me a bit snobby when it comes to live music since we tend to see a lot of good shows.
The weekend went by pretty quickly. On Saturday we somehow spent several hours at a baby wearing class at the Baby Earth store in Round Rock. I never realized how many different options there were in the baby carrying world (or that there was an international club/organization devoted to baby wearing), but we learned quickly that the best way to choose a carrier is to stick your baby in each type to see what the both of you like – not easy when your baby is still inside of you. Luckily people seemed to have no qualms about handing us their infants when we tried different styles, but since different babies have different preferences there’s really no telling what will work best until the baby is born. Either way, we learned a lot and Chris couldn’t seem to get enough. Playing with other infants makes him want our own that much more. Lucky for him he doesn’t have much longer to wait – we’re less than four months away from having a newborn in our hands!
Sunday involved more house-related shopping. But between getting cabinet hardware at Ikea and ceiling fans at Lowe’s, we were able to stop by and say hello to our friends Eryn and Alex. They just went through a natural water birth at Austin Area Birthing Center and now have a beautiful 2 week old girl that we were able to meet for the first time. Later that afternoon, I got some exercise on the trail with Chris and Richard and that evening we went to Pharah’s for Josh and Carol’s wedding anniversary. The last time we saw them, their little girl Suria was just learning how to walk, but now she’s toddling around pretty effortlessly. It’s kind of crazy that we’ll be going through all this in the next couple years!
On Monday, Chris and I spent a couple hours talking to Brielle at our prenatal appointment. We have a lot in common with her and I am really looking forward to her catching our baby. Also, after talking to her, we were relieved to hear that we didn’t need to pay for a doula. Eryn and Alex highly recommended that we hire one (we even met their doula by coincidence since Brielle shares an office with Get Babied), but Brielle assured us she could do all the massage and hands on stuff a doula would do and even bring an apprentice to help if we wanted. She explained that different midwives had different styles and that birthing center policies could make it difficult for a midwife to also act as a doula. But with our home birth, she actually wouldn’t have much to do if we did hire a doula so fortunately that’s one less thing for us to worry about!
Monday night after dinner, we did more catching up with friends. We went to a farewell party for Pia since she was going to be flying back to Chile the next day. At the party, Jaidev reminded me about a slow-cooked chicken dish I hadn’t made in ages so the next day I picked up the ingredients to make it for dinner that night. Chris and I had been eating at restaurants for the majority of our meals and although we enjoy the time together, we were getting pretty sick of the food and the expense. So Tuesday night after picking our friend Ruby up from the airport, she and Jaidev joined us for an impromptu hearty fall dinner at our house. Acorn squash, chard, and pearled couscous made for fun accompaniments and it was the best I’d eaten all week. Jaidev brought fresh figs and organic frozen yogurt for dessert - I’m thinking this kind of thing should happen more frequently! And hopefully it will now that the house is a little more presentable.
Over the course of the last several days, Chris and I finally got some of the furniture that was stored upstairs moved down into the family room. Decoration is sparse to non-existent at the moment, but I’d take that over tools and construction debris any day. Also our clean and functional kitchen has done wonders for my sanity. Unfortunately Rafael never returned to reframe the archway, finish painting, or take care of the details with the baseboards, so we may need to look into other options. Although I liked the precision cutting work his group did with our floors, I don’t know if I can say the same for their ability to paint and seal. Chris showed them how we get straight lines on textured walls with tape and caulk, but they chose to freehand and didn’t do quite as well as we tend to do. But at the same time, we don’t have nearly as much time as they do.
On Wednesday night, Chris went to a Sleigh Bells show while I got my second prenatal massage with Mandy. Then on Thursday night, we decided to sell our tickets for Awolnation and Imagine Dragons. I love both bands, but I saw Imagine Dragons at an unofficial SXSW show earlier this year and Chris saw AWOL the year before. Also I think when Chris originally bought the tickets he anticipated us going after my belly dance class, but the start time of the show got pushed up and I wasn’t too keen on missing both class and rehearsal since we have a performance coming up soon. So while we did an early dinner with Blair and Sean at Mandola’s, Chris posted the tickets to Craigslist from his phone. We didn’t have high expectations since doors were supposed to open in a couple hours and he was asking higher than the purchase price. Well, we were wrong and should’ve asked for more money – a few minutes after he posted, he got several calls and emails. And within twenty minutes, someone met us in the restaurant with cash (more than the original asking price) and we were good to go. After belly dance, I met back up with Chris, Blair, and some other friends at Black Star Co-op for Blair’s birthday. When I showed up they were finishing up a very in-depth brewery tour from the master brewer Jeff. Jeff was really cool and actually knew some of my work friends since he previously worked with a lot of them at a biotech company. And with his chemistry background he nerded out on technical stuff with Blair and Miah since they both are into home brewing. It was good to see a happy birthday boy.
And just like that another week has flown by. But we’re going to put off home improvement just a little longer. With the gorgeous crisp fall weather, it’s going to be a perfect weekend for camping. We wasted a great travel opportunity Labor Day weekend since we were so wrapped up with the house and now I find myself regretting not doing more over the summer. Considering fall is way shorter than summer, it’s time to take advantage now or else I’ll regret it come winter!
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