the underwear drawer

it's curtains for you

I am not in labor. Just thought I'd say that first off, because when you get to this late stage of the game and people don't hear from you in a while, they assume that you must be giving birth or something because what else could account for the radio silence?

Anyway. Not in labor. But you'll be the first to know. Well, first Joe, then our families, but then you for sure.


* * *


I just had my "exit interview" yesterday with the Peds Residency Director. Well, I don't think they billed it as an exit interview, but that's what I kept calling it all day. I would have had the same meeting with the director even if I wasn't switching residencies (we have these meetings twice a year where they go over your evaluations and commend you for not killing anybody), but since I'm actually taking leave of the department, I had all this crappy paperwork to fill out on top of the usual self-affirmation-fest. Unfortunately, most of the paperwork had nothing to do with me. They kept asking me about what career plans I had within Pediatrics, and what practices I had scouted out in what areas of the country--I just wanted to scrawl across the whole page in red pen, "Am planning to be a resident for THE REST OF MY LIFE with no end in sight, therefore have not looked that far ahead." But I didn't. But only because I didn't have a red pen.


* * *


So are you ready for another story about how I'm a GENIUS? Of course you are.

So remember back when Joe's dad was in town and he helped us to put together the nursery all nice-like? Well, except for the furniture part of the nursery, which apparently won't get here until sometime in Fall 2010 (actually, the new predicted delivery date is "in two or three weeks"--hey, don't rush on our account, people). And we put up wallpaper and built shelves and hung curtains and were very pleased with ourselves? Well, there were two slight problems, which a few readers pointed out. One is that the curtain panels we got were insufficient to cover the entire window. The second is that the curtains, being all gauzy and white, didn't seem to block any light whatsoever.

So ever since then, I've been trying to figure out an economical solution for our curtain problem. Should we just buy two more panels of the same curtain? But then we still have the same problem with the light. Should we just get new, opaque curtains? Good thought, but the window in the nursery is so wide that in order to cover the whole length of it, we'd have to get four standard-width curtain panels. And those things don't come cheap, my friends. The third option was that we could get all Martha and make our own curtains, but after having a nice long laugh about that, we abandoned that one as well. (Yes, I know that curtains are easy to make, or at least it seems like they should be, but you're talking to someone who doesn't even own a sewing machine. Sewing? What is this sewing you speak of?)

What I really wanted to find were relatively inexpensive curtains that were WIDE, so that we could just buy two panels that we could pull closed and have meet in the middle. But no one seemed to make curtains like that. At least until I started looking outside of the window treatment section of the store.




Oh look, curtains! It might be hard to tell from this picture, but they're kind of a orange-y red color, not quite as Satan red as they may appear.




They block the light and they're wide enough to meet in the middle when pulled together. (I just pulled one panel partway to give you the flava.) And they match the color scheme of the room. Where did I find these curtains, you may ask? Come closer and I'll tell you.

Closer than that.

OK, ready?

THEY'RE SHOWER CURTAINS.

Not the vinyl kind, obviously, but the fabric kind. With the kind of cheap-ass curtain rod that we bought and the width of our window, two shower curtains work perfectly.




Plus, see the cool shower hooks I got to go with the curtains? So matchy matchy! And so lucky on that count, because I had intended to bring a wallpaper sample to Bed Bath and Beyond with me to pick out the curtains, but of course totally forgot to do so because I am dumb. A dumb GENIUS.




Here's a closeup of the fabric detail. See how it's kind of striped, with the reds and the oranges and the golds? And then striped the other way? Pretty.


So that's the story of how I found curtains that fit our windows. So that's one less thing to worry about. Except for lack of furniture and my new job and the whole giving birth thing. But other than that, totally worry-free.


* * *


Speaking of overpriced interior design, Greg at daddytypes recently posted about child naming trends as predicted by monograms depicted in the too-rich-for-our-blood Pottery Barn Kids catalogue. One of the featured monogrammed names? "Cal." First thought: Hey! They stole our name! Second thought: Oh thank god, proof that we're not crazy for choosing to name our kid "Cal." Though I might have to re-examine my own sanity in using Pottery Barn as a barometer for mental health.

Currently reading: The 10-day weather forecast. After two weeks of humid, 90 degree weather, it finally seems to be cooling off. For a little while, at least. Why does the weather have to be so damn extreme? It seems like it went from March to August temperatures the span of a week.