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.