Trading Spaces with Myself

The next big home improvement project is off and running. There's no turning back. I have finished priming and painting the first small section of chair rail and paneling in the family room. This was the experimental phase of the project... experimental because I wasn't sure whether the primer I was using would work, or that I would like the overall effect once it was done. Good thing for me, I love it. So Phase One of a Hundred is complete.

I have a grand plan to spend my spare hours this summer converting the family room from charm-less to charming. I'm not sure who thought manufactured "wood" paneling was a decorator's dream, but it speaks volumes to me about a severe general lack of good taste in the 70's and 80's. Ditto the nasty textured wallpaper that has to come off the wall above the chair rail and the paneling (see below). Ick.




I already know, from experience, that the wallpaper comes off in about three layers. I say about, because the paper has been on the wall for so long that in sections it actually comes off in four layers (i.e. the top layer of the drywall comes off with it). It took me about 3 days of sporadic work to get the paper off the 8' x 6' section of wall that's already complete (not including the time it took to spackle and paint). Once the wallpaper is down and the wall is painted (Phase 2), then I can move on to the rest of the trim and paneling. You can see below, what a huge difference a little paint makes. I can't wait for it to be done.



I still have to do the crown moulding, obviously, but I am going to wait for Chris to paint the ceiling before I do any of the crown. Which means I am also going to have to wait until we put in a new ceiling fan. Oh well... I did say that there were about a hundred phases to this project, right? Here's a run-down of the main components of the project:

Things we've already changed~ overhead lighting, carpet

Things we are definitely going to change~ wall, ceiling fan, crown moulding, chair rail, paneling (including behind the built-ins), baseboard, outlets and covers, and the interior of the back door

Things we might change~ fireplace mantel and crown moulding above the fireplace, rail between the kitchen and family room, fireplace doors

Things we definitely won't change~ built-in cabinets

Feel free to offer up any suggestions you might have, but not about the paneling and trim... too late to turn back on that. Definitely stay tuned throughout the summer for further updates. And if you take bets on how long it'll be before I hire someone else to finish the job, I want in.

These are the Days of our Lives in Digital

We got a new toy this week... A Canon Rebel XT (digital SLR) camera. You just can't take good pictures of a soccer game with a point-and-shoot. Of course, since I'm still learning how to use the SLR, we can't get good pictures of a soccer game with the new camera, either. But they're getting better. This picture was taken from across the field, on the SPORTS setting... so I was just holding down the shutter and continuously shooting. It's not even remotely as focused as I'd like. Someone's going to have to show how to do that better. But I love the action in the picture.


I LOVE this picture of Shorty. It was shot from across the room and I cropped out a bunch of stuff around her (yay 8 megapixels!) . She was trying to cute-bully me into letting her watch more "Blue's Clues".


My poor Middlest Beauty was sick as a dog when I took this picture (strep and 103 degree fever), but she still found a sparkling smile in her so Mommy could practice with the portrait setting.


And just for fun, a shot of a bellflower (which is approximately 1 cm from the top of the stem to the tip of the petals). A teeny little flower that I shot from 6 feet away. Again, nowhere near the focus I hoped for, but still a pretty picture, I think.


I guess there's no chance I'll ever give up my day job, but I figure there's no harm in trying to get great pictures, right? To quote one of the great philosophers of my generation: "Life moves pretty fast... if you don't stop to look around once in awhile, you might miss it." I want to remember it with as much clarity and color contrast as possible. So I guess I'd better start learning fast. Or I might miss it.

The Lazy Housewife Life

Ahh, the unexpected quiet of Monday afternoon. Quiet because all of my daughters are absent at the moment (one nap, two playdates). Unexpected because both the playdates were last minute deals and the nap should have been over an hour ago. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. I think these little gifts of time are great. I'm sure there are a hundred things I could be doing, but why? I'd much rather do those things to the soundtrack of "Mommy can I have some juice?" "So-and-so stole the remote!"or, my personal favorite: "She hit/kicked/stuck-her-tongue-out-at me!". It's like I need the additional stress these phrases provide as incentive to move my butt. Or maybe when the girls are going on like that, I get loads of stuff done in order to avoid dealing with them in that moment. Hmmmmm...

I wish I had a good book to read. I've read all the ones currently in my possession... but wait, I've got an Iron Chef America stored in TiVo right now. Couch and remote, here I come. All I need now are the bon-bons. Buh-bye!

Lucky for Us~ We Saved $178.00 (Six and a Half Hours in Dishwasher Hell)

SUBTITLE:A blow by blow account of why the "experts" can get away with charging $178.00 to install something in your house:

Our dishwasher was recalled this week. Something to do with setting kitchens on fire. We had the option of getting it repaired for free... which I'm sure would have meant waiting 8-72 weeks for a part to come in... and then waiting an additional 5-87 days for the service guy to be able to get over and make the repair. All of this for free, while you have no working (safe) dishwasher for 61-591 days. The other option was to get a rebate on the purchase of a new dishwasher. We opted for this, because the old one was six years old anyway, so why not buy a new one, while we could get $300.00 off the price, right? So, (yay!) new dishwasher. I'm sure in retrospect my loving husband would like to murder me. Here's why:

We went to Sears to order our shiny new appliance. Chris chased the girls up and down the aisles while I closed the deal with the Sears dude. I had the Sears card, you see.

"When would you like it delivered? Is Friday good?" he asks.
"Oh yes, that's great!" I reply.

So that's fine, and the delivery guys would take away the old one (for $10.00). Great.

"When would you like it installed~ Monday or Tuesday?" he goes on.
"?!?!?" my brain says, while my mouth says "How much does that cost?".
"$178.00".
"!!!!!" my head yells, while I look around for my dear husband and say "Don't you think you could just install it, sweetie?"

Chris's face says "You're crazy", but his mouth says "Okkkkaaaayyyy."

Yeah. Lucky for me... my husband is a very patient man.

The dishwasher arrived with a fair amount of fanfare on Friday (that's a whole other story). The first thing we noticed, after getting the dishwasher uncrated and partially connected: we needed a single piece of copper connector (some kind of little adapter thingy~ that's a technical term) to connect the copper supply pipe to the water supply line for the dishwasher. Stupid pipe. FOUR trips (three to Sears and one to Lowe's) and 3 1/2 hours later, Chris was finally able to procure the right part (for free) from the sales guy at Lowe's. He actually had to take apart a kit to take the piece out that we needed. We'd send him a fruit basket, if we knew where he lived. He's our hero.

All the pipes, drain hose, power supply etc. were now in place (4 hours into the project and counting). We shoved the dishwasher into position. Or more accurately shoved, and shoved and grunted and shoved. And discovered that the counter and cabinets are not connected to each other on that end of the counter. And that there was a veritable geographic record of sedimentary-type layers in linoleum under our feet. Judging from the extreme ugliness of the bottom layer of lino, I'd say the house was built during the last Ice Age or maybe even the late Cretaceous period. More to the point, though, the many layers of flooring were making the gap under the counter a smidge too tight for the dishwasher to fit. Good thing the counter was a little loose from the cabinetry. We finally got it in there. And discovered that we couldn't level it due to the fact that the top layer of lino, which does not extend all the way into the cavity where the dishwasher goes, was in the way of one of the leveling feet. And also a piece of wood moulding was blocking the other side. Hard to describe, but the technical details don't really matter.

The bottom line is, we were forced to reverse-shove the dishwasher back OUT of the cavity (and cracked a little piece off the front of the cheap-o formica counter in the process), so that Chris could cut away a strip of linoleum and a piece of the moulding with a utility knife~ a job which required him to insert all 6 foot 4 inches of him into the space, which is the size of a dishwasher (go figure). Lucky for him, he did not lose any fingers (or eyes) in the process. We crammed the dishwasher back into position. At that point it was getting easier, because we almost had a system going. It was time to test the dishwasher's efficacy, with a 10 minute-rinse cycle. Five hours into the whole process and counting.

Five minutes into the rinse cycle (pardon my French, but SH*T SH*T...) water sprayed out of the drain hose at the top of the air gap under the sink. SH*T. Stop the cycle, stop the cycle! My husband managed to keep his sense of humor up to this point as he said:

"You know, the good news is that after all of this is done, we still have to do the dishes!"

We pulled the thing out (again) and discovered that the drain hose UNDER the dishwasher had leaked as well. Lucky for us, the Cretaceous (or maybe Jurassic?) period lino was curled enough that it acted like a bowl and contained the pint or so of water that had spilled out. Anyway, long story short (I know, too late)... Chris fixed the drain hose, we cleaned up the mess, retested the machine while it was still in the middle of the kitchen (no leaks) and grunted the bloody thing back under the counter (again). And did the dishes. So far so good. 6 1/2 hours and done.

$178.00 doesn't sound so bad now, does it?

The Perfect Parent

I was lurking on a parenting web board today that I used to frequent quite a bit and one of the threads on there got me thinking. Mostly that I'm glad I don't post there anymore. The original post could be paraphrased as "I'm a bad mommy because I yell at my kids and I'm trying to stop, please help me." She actually said in the title "bad mommy alert". Insert MAJOR eyeroll here. Whatever. Since when does it make you a bad parent if you yell at your kids? I agree that using a raised voice for every little transgression will probably backfire on you in the long run on the discipine front. But sometimes you just can't get your child's attention any other way.

So... between hush-hush parenting, the spanking-is-abuse camp and the self-esteem police, most of us are apparently in big trouble and our children are destined to fail as human beings. I'm not saying that we should reverse whatever parenting archetype we are working with and put our kids down, or spank them or shriek at them every time they get out of line, but are we supposed to be our child's best friend? Repeat after me, gang: NO. We... are ... the ... parents. Granted, none of us is perfect and we all regret some of the things that we do with regard to our children. I'd even venture to say it's okay to feel guilty if you yell at your kids for no apparent reason (which I'm ashamed to say, I've done on more than one occasion). But we are human beings and we're raising humans not automatons. And human beings have emotions: good and bad.

This brings me to the gist of the thought process that this poor, idealistic (and somewhat deluded) mommy stirred up in my brain... the Perfect Parent. That's what we all set out to be. From even before we have kids, and through each step of parenthood (up until we actually have to live through a particular stage with all involved parties coming out alive) we have a set of rules (conscious and subconscious) that we think we are going to live by. Rules that will make us a better parent then our own were:

HAH!

is what I say to that.

You already know the rules. They started being invented when we were children ourselves.

1) I'll never make my kids eat brussel sprouts.
2) My kids will be allowed to stay up late every night and watch rated R movies.

These are the easy ones to laugh off, but as you got older, the rules got more complex:

3) I'll never buy a minivan like Mom's (complex because you won't know you want it until you need it, and by then you might need a church van).
4) I won't ever use the TV as a babysitter (yeah right...talk to me again after you havent showered for four days straight).
5) I'll never yell at my kids.
6) I'll never spank my kids.
7) I'll never.
8) I'll never.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we simply can't BE the perfect parent who lives up to all of these hare-brained rules. Like I said before... until you are in that moment, and living that particular situation, you can't possibly know what you will do. It's much better to treat the Perfect Parent rules that you set up like the Pirate Code... not so much of a code and more of a guideline~ if you dont know what I'm talking about you haven't been to the movies in far too long... but I digress.

The bottom line is: You can't call yourself a bad parent for undermining your sense of parenting idealism, by actually behaving like a human. And you can't let your Perfect Parent Code get in the way of actually parenting. And you're not going to hell for yelling at your kids every once in awhile.

A Taste of Summer

We had some uncharacteristic (for May) close to 90-degree weather today, so I pulled out the old kiddie pool from the garage and let the girls splash around for awhile. By late this afternoon the water was quite warm, and they were in the pool for close to an hour. It was Shorty's first time in the splash pool, and she had a great time. (if the shrieks of protest when it was time to get out were any indication).

"What Choice Had I?"

In honor of the impending National Day of Heroine Worship (aka Mother's Day), I figured it was incumbent on me, as a Practicing Mother, to go on a little bit about My Kind. I know I'm a few days early, but with any luck I'll be so busy being celebrated on the Big Day, that I won't have time to wax poetic about my choice to be a mother.

I'm currently reading Anybody Out There?, the latest offering from Marian Keyes... my favorite chick-lit author. There is a great quote in the book that I think sums the state of Motherhood up very well. After a near-death experience, the protagonist, Anna Walsh, calls her mother long-distance from New York to Dublin to thank her for giving birth to her. Her mother replies, very matter-of-factly: "What choice had I? You were in there, how else were you going to get out?" Mrs. Walsh meant this as a way to deflect her daughter's gratitude, but I think that the statement actually points out the main reason that we have to be grateful to our mothers.

I have no choice. You are part of me. I love you. New mothers are often overwhelmed by this inability to exercise their own will, but they'll get over it. They may not want to get up in the middle of the night to offer the squalling bundle in the bassinet yet more milk, but they do it. Later on, they may not feel like reading Green Eggs and Ham for the 900th time since breakfast, but they do that too. And later still, they may not want to part with 20K smackeroos to pay for the wedding to that jackass with the long hair and the tongue ring, but they screw up their faces, take some great anxiety meds and they do that too. Maybe not without a fuss, but they do it all. Of course, this doesn't mean that we should take our mothers for granted (nor God forbid, be taken for granted) just because they (we) do those things without really wanting to. This isn't an excuse to trod on her (or your) motherly deeds, saying: "My mother does these things because she has to, not because she chooses to."

On the contrary... I believe that mothers deserve even more respect for having surrendered their primary concern for themselves to an all-encompassing need to protect and nurture their offspring (It is, after all, possible to NOT do this~ childbirth does not necessarily a mother make). Especially in the case where protecting and nurturing those offspring means that they have to make allowances for things that they would not ordinarily choose for themselves... the tongue-ring, for example.

Without a doubt, on the day I had my first child, I gained a renewed sense of respect for what my own mother must have gone through, parenting a child such as myself. But there is a level beyond respect that I hadn't yet reached. It's like you have to make a decision to give up, in some ways. You are still YOU (or at least most of us are). However, your status as a mother means that the YOU that's in you has to take the back seat a lot of the time to the MOM that's taking up all the space in the front row. You have to accept this as part of the job and move on. Every child should look at their mom and consider her life from this point of view. I don't expect this for myself yet, as I am relatively green at this whole parenting thing... but I hope that I will be that kind of mom, enough of the time, that my kids will realize all of this too, someday. That will be my reward for a job well done.

Would You Like a Little Rash With That Whine?

Juniper bushes are not very nice. The only good thing I can say about them is that they are the great-uncle of my favorite spirit, Gin. We have a gin-ormous monstrosity of a juniper bush in our front yard. It is at least seven feet tall, twenty feet long and about ten feet wide. I think it's meant to block the lights from oncoming car traffic, but it's hideous and I have always hated it. And I hate it even more now.

I was very proud of myself. Every year, I pay this company a gawd-awful sum of money to come and turn on the in-ground sprinkler system. Then I pay them another gawd-awful sum to drain it at the end of the season. Well... I've watched them turn it on enough times, that I figured "why pay them $100.00 to turn on a water switch and kick the dirt divits off the tops of the sprinkler heads when I can do it myself?" So I did it, with great success. Pat on the back.

Cue the stupid smelly juniper bush. The bloody thing had gotten so big it grew over the top of one of the sprayer heads and was completely blocking the spray. It's probably been like that for a couple of years and I never noticed because it's on the other side of the bush from the house. Did I say yet what a stupid bush it is?

I pulled out the clippers (which are actually meant to be wire cutters, but we've adopted them for branch trimming), and started trimming branches. And trimming. And getting sprayed. (why not turn off the water?~ you may well wonder: I wanted to see what branches needed trimming~ smooth move, eh?) But back to the story. I was trimming. And trimming. And (ouch) getting prickers in my hand (gardening gloves? Who needs 'em?) And trimming.

I now have a rash all over my hands and arms from the bush's prickers... and an only moderately unblocked sprinkler head. I am about to itch myself to death. Argghhh! Did I say I hate that bush? I'll give you $100.00 if you come and cut the thing down for me.

And yes, I am aware that the rash is all my fault. But it doesn't matter, because (and did I mention?) I hate that bush so it's automatically the bush's fault. The rash is probably the bush's payback for talking smack about it.

Now, please excuse me while I go and scratch myself silly.

I Promise, I Have an Excuse (or 3 or 4)...

I am falling behind in my posts. But when I post a lot, I fall behind in my life. There is apparently no room for me to focus on any one thing in my life at any given time. So, please forgive me... I promise something new soon. But in the meantime, here is my list of excuses.

A Day in the Life (yesterday):

1. Went to the store to buy a flower for the Big One's teacher (for teacher appreciation).
2. Dropped Big One and the flower off at school.
3. Realized that Middlest One was sick (cough, gunk, fever) and called in to her school.
4. Dosed Middlest One with meds to help her feel better.
5. Took Littlest Beauties to Michael's to get beads for the Big One's African Market Project.
6. Took them to the grocery store to get veggies for dinner.
7. Fed them lunch. Ate a yogurt.
8. Emailed Big One's teacher to ask what she wanted for lunch on Tuesday (also for teacher appreciation).
9. When Big One got home, drove to visit the 'rents for the afternoon.
10. Went for a walk and had a tea party with the 'rents. Ate too many cookies and scones.
11. Drove home.
12. Cleaned up puke from kid, clothes, shoes, loveys, garage floor and front walk (poor Middlest Beauty).
13. Dosed Middlest Beauty again.
14. Cooked dinner (and had a drink).
15. Ate dinner and tried to convince Shorty that Chicken and Dumplings was worthy of her discerning palate. More or less failed at that last.
16. Went online and made reservations for a CRUISE to Alaska for next year... to celebrate Chris and my 10th anniversary which is actually THIS year. Woo-hoo!
17. Kissed the family and went out to babysitting co-op meeting (really an excuse to drink margaritas).
18. Came home and watched "Heroes" on TiVo.
19. Finished cleaning up. Visited Parenting Web Board.
20. Checked on Beauties.
21. Went to bed.

Where There's No Will, Oh What I'll Weigh

I'm sure that many of you are now aware that I am a weak woman. Not to sell myself short, because there are plenty of things that I'm actually pretty good at, but Will Power is so not one of them. One of the main things that I (apparently) have a real problem with is Butter Chicken.

I know, I know! You thought I was going to say something like Valium or chocolate or excessive alcohol. Well, I've never had a Valium, I only mildly like chocolate, and I can stop drinking any old time I want to. But get a container of Butter Chicken in the house and I'm in big whooey trouble. For those of you that don't know what the H-E double hockey sticks I'm talking about, you clearly haven't ever been introduced to Indian Food Heaven. Butter Chicken is chunks of chicken breast that are tandoori cooked and then served in this 2000 calorie per tablespoon-thick-creamy- tomatoey-deliciousness of a sauce. You eat said deliciousness with basmati rice (and my personal favorite, naan~ flat yogurt-based bread).

It's becoming a Friday night tradition. Chris gets home. We order pizza for the Girls. Then we order Indian Food for us, and Chris runs out to pick it up. The restaurant we order from sends way too much food (of course), so there's always plenty for the next day. So two helpings on Friday night, and two helpings for lunch on Saturday. Auggggh!

I have just finished the container. I swore to myself that I would only have ONE serving. But I left myself too many loopholes by not giving myself specifically worded instructions. Instead of saying to myself "Self, you will only have one helping of butter chicken!", I should have said: "SELF! YOU! WILL! ONLY! HAVE! ONE! SERVING of RICE, CHICKEN and SAUCE, and you will NOT under any circumstances go into the trash can to get the container of sauce out so that you can eat the rest of the rice with two more generous scoops of said sauce! YOU WILL NOT under any circumstances do something that gross!"

Yeah... well, hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I could say coulda-shoulda-woulda all day, but the fact of the matter is that I didn't tell myself any of those things, so here I am.

BLUSH. I need help.

A Wii Confession

Here is my Confession for the Week:

As of today, I am not in the running for the Housewife of the Week Award. In fact, if I had a boss and a paycheck, I'd probably have been called into the office for a serious hand-slapping by now. Call it the home equivalent of spending the work day on the computer playing Solitaire, but I can't help it... I'm officially addicted to Wii.

I finally got my paws on a Wii system yesterday, after months of fruitless searching, and now I can't stop playing. My arms literally ache from playing Wii Sports (Bowling appears to be the family favorite). I actually broke a small sweat playing Wii Tennis yesterday. And today I bowled two games against Middlest Daughter and got roundly schooled by her Mad Skills. Seriously... she bowled a 162 on the second game (6 spares and a double strike in a single game). All the curve correction and stance strategy in the world can't compete with a 4.75 year old on a mission.

The only good thing that can possibly come out of this is that I may actually get some exercise by playing a video game. If the ache in my triceps is any indication, I should have great tank top arms within a few days. I may actually be able to wave goodbye to someone without having to do the Beauty Queen Parade wave. No more wrist palm wrist palm wrist palm for me.

The possibility of upper arm fitness aside, I am going to quit playing for today, before someone refers me to a 12 step program. The bathrooms really can't wait any longer for the attention they deserve. Not that they're going to get the scrubbing they really need today. I don't think my arms can take it.

Bad Megan, no biscuit.

A Shorty Says... What?

The two Littlest Beauties went to my friend Laura's house to play this morning while Chris and I went to a meeting. When I got back to pick them up, Laura commented to me on how communicative Shorty is getting lately. She hasn't got a lot of words, but she gets her meaning across, through various means. And she's very polite too... 'please' and 'thank you' are becoming key parts of her (less than extensive) vocabulary. I'm not quite sure how, but the child has manners. And bless Laura for noticing what we've been hoping was the case all along. Shorty can talk, even if she can't talk very well, just yet.

We've been working with her for ages on baby sign language, which I really believe has helped bridge any gap that existed in our efforts to communicate with her. She can say more, please, eat, and milk in signs, and she is learning more words and signs everyday. Her frustration levels seem to be minimal even though her verbal pronunciation is nearly impossible to decipher out of context. But, still, I think she's getting there. Our favorite things that she says (verbally) are "Lub u" (love you), "day u" (thank you) and "ah wah eye eem" (I want ice cream).

So... in her communicative-but-mostly-non-verbal way, Shorty brought me a book to read to her this afternoon. And by mostly non-verbal communication, I mean that she chucked the book at my head while shouting "boooooo". After the requisite lecture on the relative inappropriateness of chucking books at people, as well as a request for a "please" from her, I agreed to read the book and she plopped down next to me. And wouldn't you know that the book was not in English, although it did happen to be translated in the margins? I started reading the English translation to her. Moomintroll's bucket is BLUE. Snork Maiden lends him a YELLOW shovel.

SLAM!

The book closed on my fingers. So, just for fun, I read the title to her in the book's published language: Finnish. It must have made a lot more sense to her that way because she somehow made me read the whole book to her (four times) in Finnish.

Does that count as communication?

Note: I do not speak Finnish. I studied it once a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Suffice it to say that if there had been any Finnish persons present during my oration of 'Moomintroll's Colors', they would have been mortally offended. My sincerest apologies to Finns everywhere.