A name, a home, and other Tuesday miscellany.

It’s going to be a steaming hot day. Christian and I just came home from his doctor’s appointment and it’s already well over 80°. And I’m drinking a hot beverage. I’m not sure what I was thinking, other than that I fell asleep after midnight and got up at 6:30, and a rare caffeinated treat sounded good.

In the vein of Carissa’s Miscellany Mondays, I’m declaring it Miscellany Tuesday since there are several topics I want to write about.

1. Our girl’s name: Tabitha Grace.

I like to have a name picked ASAP after the gender reveal. It’s so fun to go from saying “the baby” to a name and a gender. We had a tentative name, but I wasn’t 100% on it, and on Friday after my appointment A.J. suggested Tabitha. I liked it right away because it’s old-fashioned, everyone knows how to spell it, and it’s in the Bible – but it’s not overused, unlike our other name choice. But please don’t nickname her… I don’t want her to be a Tabi! I know Grace is a very common middle name, especially among Christians, but it’s so meaningful and pretty that we wanted to include it.

2. Bye-bye, computer. Hello, cleaning.

My computer crashed once and for all last Thursday. It’s completely unresponsive. I can use A.J.’s laptop, but I think it’s a good thing that mine crashed because I am less tempted to get on during the day. Also, I gave up on the Homemaker’s Challenge because I wasn’t able to be consistent with it last week, and I have other cleaning priorities right now. And I don’t want to be tied down to blogging plans. It’s not a good season for that. But I’m still excited to go through the ebook at my own pace.

3. 20 weeks.

I’m officially at the halfway point today. It’s a great place to be. I have so much more I want to get done before she arrives, and I still have a good stretch of the second trimester left… but being halfway there makes it seem not so impossibly faraway.

4. Baby sleep.

I’ve read or skimmed a lot of books on infant/child sleep, but without a doubt my favorite is Good Night, Sleep Tight by “The Sleep Lady,” Kim West. She uses a gentle, attended cry-it-out method for older infants (which can be easily modified based on your preferences), but gives so much practical advice – no stringent rules! I read it several months ago and just checked it out from the library again, to refresh myself on newborn habits – and ended up getting some refreshers on a better routine for Christian. Highly recommended!

5. Making home.

I’ve been approaching homemaking from a fresh perspective the past few days. I feel so settled in my routines – they’re realistic; the challenge is to carry them out consistently. The following are two quotes I’ve pondered recently and I find them so refreshing:

“Truth be told, the only way to really keep a house spotless is to establish a routine and stay with it. This is how our grandmothers kept house–they just plugged away at it every single day, bit by bit (especially if it was messy to begin with) until it becomes simply a matter of maintaining a pristine home as opposed to taxing oneself by cleaning the house top-to-bottom every single day. Sometimes we have to be reminded that not every midcentury woman was as perfect as June Cleaver or Harriet Nelson, but their homes often looked as if they were.” -Jess, commenting on Liana: the (vintage-loving) Housewife

“(W)e want everything to be quick and easy, or we think we do. But there is something in the human soul that longs for beauty beyond necessity. Of course it is easier not to make the bed. But there is a substantial difference between turning down a neatly made bed in the evening and lying down in a mess of sheets left from the night before. To be beautiful, a home need not be luxurious in size or contents. The beauty of a well-kept home may arise simply from structure and ritual and attention to detail, things that can be present even in the most modest of homes.” -Margaret Kim Peterson in Keeping House

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