overdone

So I missed the mother of all yard sales this weekend, a huge neighborhood-wide one that I try to hit every year. In the neighborhood in question, I don't think they sell you a house unless you are a family with little kids, so the pickings of toys, children's books, clothes, and baby gear tends to be especially rich. I was hoping to score some new reading material for Iris and an exersaucer and/or a swing for Baby Brudder.

Instead of yard sale-ing, I learned the meaning of overdoing it. It began a couple weeks ago with an afternoon of crouching in the garden, planting, which strained some muscles or ligaments or something in the all-important thigh-bone's-connected-to-the-belly-bone region. But did I rest? Oh no, I did not. I walked, here there and everywhere. Then I spent that one afternoon hauling baby stuff up from the basement. I felt that afterward, too. But instead of taking it easy for a few days, I walked some more. Miles more. By the night before the sale, I was in no shape for an hours-long, neighborhood-wide yard sale safari. I could barely make it up the stairs to bed. I don't just mean I was tired. I mean I was hurting.

I don't like to admit it, but I am four years older than the last time I carried twenty-five pounds of baby and all its prenatal baggage on my belly. All this time I have been mocking the fact that I am considered, in the medical parlance, of "advanced maternal age," and yet here I am, hobbling like an old lady. I hate to give up walking - it's not only my pleasure and my exercise, but my lifestyle, one of the reasons I live in a city neighborhood instead of out in the 'burbs somewhere. But I think I better put in some R & R now or pay for it later, quite possibly in damages worse than missed yard sale bargains.

So, since I have no yard sale scores to show off, here is a little something I found elsewhere for Baby Brudder's room:


A little spot-cleaning and it will be good as, well, the 1970s.

And some embellishments I have added to spiff up Iris' former infant wardrobe:


Trees. I just can't stay away from the trees.


A fox related to this one; an apple applique to hide an unsuccessful stamp attempt; and a kangaroo pocket because, ridiculous as it is, the idea just grabbed me one day.


This little elephant is here because I have a pet peeve about baby clothes with cutesy words and phrases on them. This otherwise perfectly presentable secondhand shirt had completely unnecessary ribbons sewn onto it to inform all and sundry that its wearer was "cute as a button" or some such. So, off with the ribbons and on with an elephant applique to cover up the scar. Much better! In my finicky little world at least.