Before Baby Nesting Projects

First things first, I must mention that today is a SPECIAL day. Today, my mumma turns 50!!! Everyone give a great big shout out and a Happy Birthday to the Old Girl! Love you Mumma.

Now that my thesis defense is all done and over with, I have the next 3 months or so to prepare for the arrival of the Bambino. I am going to be working a little bit but I will have quite a lot of downtime. I am hoping to maximize the time off, avoid boredom and keep myself organized and actually doing something, so I have prepared a fairly lengthy list of tasks that I hope to accomplish in our home before the big event. Most of these relate to transforming our space to accommodate the baby. I am planning on keep track of this list on my sidebar so I can cross off each job as it gets finished. I'm sure many of the tasks will be blogged about. Some of the jobs are just for me to do, some are just for the FD, and some will be a joint effort. I'm committed to getting a lot done over the next three months so that when the baby comes I won't feel like there are tons of jobs left unfinished that may never get done.

• Empty and clean/reorganize all drawers in kitchen
• Organize laundry room: including pulling out everything and replacing the floor, clearing off and organizing shelves, re-purposing plastic storage drawers
  
• Transform 2nd room from spare bedroom/office to baby's room - definitely the biggest job!
  
• Replace flooring in baby's room
• Purge and condense scrapbooking supplies
• Empty desk and sort through what needs to be kept and what needs to go
  
• Find a new home for filing cabinet
• Organize books on bookshelf into books to keep out, books to pack away, books to give away
• Possibly find new home for bookshelf
• Organize top shelf of both of our closets
• Clean out and organize junk drawer in FD's dresser, and drawers of our bedside tables
• Go on a short and sweet "babymoon" together - already done! Maybe we'll get to sneak in another one.
  
• Transform shelves in armoire to a "closet" for baby's room
• Build baby's change table
• Stock freezer with pre-made meals so we can survive the first few weeks postpartum without starving to death
  
• Make a baby wrap using Jen's instructions
  
• Get armoire and change table painted (we were going to do this ourselves but we got the hook ups for some free professional painting)
  
• Pick strawberries and blueberries (freeze and preserve some)
  
• Do some canning: bbq onions, salsa, jam, diced tomatoes, pickled beets, dill pickles, red pepper relish

What do you think? Can we get it all done?

Ready ... set ... GO!