Six weeks. Or less. Maybe more? Probably not.

And miles to go before I sleep.

Yep, the due date is just six weeks from today. June 20, if you don’t know already. I’ve benched Rachel. She’s having Braxton-Hicks contractions with any significant exertion, so she’s outta the game. She’s been sticking to organizing and nesting for the most part. And there’s plenty of that to do, believe me.

But she’s looking good! Cutest little pregnant lady of all time if you ask me. She looks just about the same to me, with a big basketball hiding under her shirt — a basketball that sometimes punches back at you through her belly.

I’ve been eyeing the due date (probably more like a week before the due date) as the next big deadline on the horizon to try and get certain projects done. The last big deadline in my head like this was my family’s visit back in late October for the Marine Corps Marathon and finishing the 2nd bedroom renovations. I was shooting for end of 2011 for a few things, but that became pretty unrealistic with all the holiday breaks.

But all along, I’ve had this list in my head of things I really want to get done before June 20, when I hope to ramp things down significantly and take it easy and relax together as much as possible. As in, not rushing home from work to start a project and go til midnight 3 nights a week.

This list that I started putting together about 6 weeks ago is now hilarious. It’s been sitting in my drafts for about six weeks, and this same list you see below initially had this message above it:  “If I’m going to make it to everything on this list, I’ve got only 12-14 Saturdays left to make all this happen.”

Ha. Well, cut those Saturdays down to “5”, cross depressingly few things off of the list, and then you about have the state of things. That’s been my rule of thumb: everything takes twice as long, and is four times as complicated as you think it will be.

Rachel would tell you that many of these things aren’t must-do before the baby gets here, and she’s probably right. Certainly things that are outside, downstairs or non-dust generating can theoretically be done after the baby arrives, though I mostly want to make the best use of all this free time I have right now, that I won’t have again in enormous blocks like this again for years, if ever.

I want to relax (as much as that’s possible!) once we have the baby in our house and take a home renovation sabbatical. (I guess that means that this home renovation blog will turn into a ‘baby pictures’ blog for awhile. You’ve been warned!)

But however the list turns out, we’ll be thrilled if we get nothing but the nursery (obviously) and the upstairs rear sleeping porch totally finished. That will at least mean that all urgent upstairs tasks are finished, and Rachel can unpack and settle into the new sleeping porch room with closets and we’ll have our stuff and the baby room organized and ready for life. So I guess this is really a list of all the things that make up the last of Phase I of Our Old Rowhouse renovations, whether or not they happen in the next 6 weeks. (If you’re betting, I’d take the “under” on that one.)

On to the mammoth list. Links to blog posts about the unfortunately short list of completed projects.

Status	Project
Attic
Done	New cellulose insulation for the attic
Done	Install new sheathing over front floor of attic.
Halfway	Consolidate, organize and then move basement stuff up to new attic storage.
Upstairs sleeping porch
Yeah, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Probably when we hit lotto and add master bathroom in porch.	Pull up old floor, shim, level and install new plywood subflooring.
I’ve got the spray foam, hoping to do this Sunday or the following weekend.	Insulate porch ceiling with spray-in foam.
Finished – save for interior, shelves, etc.	Build new closet on the southern end of porch.
Finished – save for interior, shelves, etc.	Build new closet on the northern end of the porch.
Contractor.	Electrical for new lighting, switches, etc. on porch.
	Install new ceiling (beadboard or drywall?)
	Case and trim windows.
Back yard
	Grade out the yard, remove any concrete remnants, try to level things out as best as we can.
	Get estimates on a new fence, get at least the northern fence installed (so we can build raised beds — also, our neighbors have been so kind not to complain about the fence being gone for so many months.)
	Build raised beds, fill with soil, plant garden.
	Get DDOE contractors out to install new permeable pavers. (Part of DC’s RiverSmart program. We get at least half the cost paid for by the city to replace impervious surface.

So, think I’m crazy or what? I should probably make a chart like this of all the things we’ve completed in the last year and a half at some point — that would probably be a boost, right?