Lately.

- I have entered that irrational, stressed out phase of pregnancy in which I feel overwhelmed by the number of things I need to do at this very second but also like they are impossible to accomplish in any imaginable time frame. This is reflected in the chaotic nature of what follows.

Of course it's all completely doable, I'm just tired and round and fell the other day and hurt my bum (everything's fine, except my balance). In other words, I just need a bath, some liposuction, and a couple days off from every one else that requires anything from me. And a good audiobook, because of course the one I'm listening to is entirely mediocre. Hit me with your recommendations.

- I'm hosting a Christmas ladies night with the church next week. I have one week to bring the Christmas cheer to our house and am really looking forward to it. So far I've pulled our bins out of storage and stuffed our advent calendar. The plan is to get the other crazy house tasks out of the way so I can decorate the tree Saturday night with a big glass of amaretto mug of tea and a Christmas movie on in the background. This is what is keeping me motivated.

I'm stumped on what to serve at my party, though. I've got a recipe for casserole cookies I'm going to try and I think I'll buy some shortbread. Other than that I'm lost. If you were coming to my party (and if you're in the area, you know you're invited) what would you want to eat/drink/be merry about?

- On an unrelated note, my boss is 81 years old and rather old fashioned. He's a very successful man that has had a very impressive career. He's done well for himself, and has a housekeeper to help him and his wife out. He's still very mentally with it, but he's, you know, old. He calls me his secretary (I think all the secretaries died when we entered the new millennium), asks me to photostat things, and doesn't understand how to turn his phone off of vibrate. He also calls his winter walking shoes his rubbers.

My boss is not great at tidying up after himself and we finally got our winter dump of snow Monday night. All week, he's been lamenting about the mess his rubbers make on the floor when he takes them off and puts them back on. All week I have been dying holding in my laughter. Because I am 12.

- I know everyone is anxiously awaiting news on how the baby's room is coming and the answer is: slowly; very freaking slowly. I needed to paint some furniture before I could move on to the actual setting up of the room. I did that this weekend with the giant bucket of white paint we've had kicking around the house for a couple years. I hate it, it's not glossy at all, and scuffs like no one's business, but we already have it so boom. Free. I was on my third and final coat on the bookshelf when I finally bothered to read the label on the offending bucket. It's a primer-sealer combo, clearly leftover from our basement reno. And now my hatred is completely justifiable.

I'd cry and weep at my own ignorance (I've painted our doors, door frames, and entertainment centre with it) except that it's nice to have an excuse to buy something new. I also used the better part of three gallons of that junk, so we got our money's worth. It won't take much to get a quick coat of semi-gloss on the doors next summer so they stop scuffing, and those suckers are well primed so let's pretend it's all good.

When it came to my dresser and bookshelf I knew in advance I'd need to put a couple coats of poly on it because of the horrible scuffing. Boom. No problem. I threw a couple coats on easy peasy Sunday night. It was dark, though, and I was tired so guess what? My poly streaked, it looks like cat pee, and now Karl needs to get in there and give it a gentle sand to get rid of the ugly. (I could do it, but I'm emotionally done with that paint job.) Fortunately, the dresser turned out really well. It was white to begin with and just needed some touch ups. The bookshelf could use another quick coat of white, but I've already poly'd it and it's just going to be storage furniture in baby's closet. So I quit before we ended up in worse shape than we started in.

In short (too late), a couple pieces of free furniture in okay shape that have been in dire need of painting for years, a bucket of wrong leftover "paint," some poly, and a couple hours of painting just saved us a couple hundred dollars. I'll take it. And I only cried once over the cat pee stains. I'm pregnant, though, so if I'm not crying every other day my tear ducts will probably explode.

- Tonight I'm planning on tackling the book explosion that has become our office/guest room. I sold our bookshelf and bought a new one from IKEA. That's the goal. It's also been a couple days since I cried so I'm going to watch Call the Midwife.

And now you know.