Our entire house is in progress. That means that there are little things and big things waiting to be done in every room of the house. Since I’m home all day, these things bother me to no end. Most of what is left are things I am unable to do myself. Mike works a lot so it is hard to find time for the big projects. I don’t know how many times I’ve complained that I just want one room completely DONE already. Poor Mike. Nothing like a nagging wife to make you feel needed, right?
Out of the blue, Mike decided to finish the living room as a Christmas present to me. Wow! I was am so thrilled. It is the first room you walk into so I’m always embarrassed when people come over and see this:
It is hard for me knowing that Mike spends his days making houses beautiful for other people. I get so jealous! It is like living with a world class chef and eating ramen every night. The kids and I helped out as much as we could and the project ended up lasting two days. He put new trim on the windows and doors and painted the walls and trim. I hung up pictures. Mia helped so much. She cleaned out all the drawers, painted the back pantry and organized everything. She even put up Christmas lights outside! Mica and Mikal helped a lot too… they kept an eye on Echo which is a HUGE job.
The living room turned out great. We picked out a color that I thought was orange. It turned out to be very yellow. That’s what I get for thinking! It’s funny, because my sister has a yellow room too. I like it because it is bright and happy.
You might recall me complaining about the bathrooms. When Mike started working on them, he got disgusted and quit. This has been a source of irritation for me for over a year now. Yes. OVER A YEAR. We have two bathrooms and ten people living in the house. The front bathroom, the one the kids and GUESTS use, is a mess. There is no tile in the tub. The tile on the floor and walls has huge gaps and isn’t grouted. The faucets in the tub are gone, so we can’t use it. That has actually been sort of handy as we’ve used the tub to store the DOOR. That’s right. No door. I’ve nailed up a curtain and everyone has to knock to enter.
My bathroom isn’t a whole lot better. The toilet and shower work [thank goodness], but there is no sink. I’ve been brushing my teeth in the kitchen for the better part of a year and it seriously grosses me out. What really upsets me is that it isn’t functional. I don’t care what it looks like or what other people might think. But it is difficult to get eight kids up and around for school without a working bathroom. Everything takes twice as long. It sucks.
Yesterday I decided that it was time to make some changes. If I’m going to be complaining, I should get off my ass and do something about it. Right? My first project was the door. Our house is old and the door opening was an inch too narrow for the pre-hung door we bought. I took apart the jamb and cut it down. After that, I was able to install it. The door itself is still a half inch too wide, so it doesn’t shut all the way but it is a hell of a lot better than a curtain. I don’t feel confident enough with the sawzall to attempt cutting the door. Today I’m going to install a chain so that the kids can lock the door from the inside until we get the door fixed right.
I also fixed the faucet so we can use the tub again. We can’t take showers as there still isn’t tile on the walls, but I won’t have to wash Echo’s hair in the kitchen sink anymore. Woot! Here is a list of some of the other things I accomplished yesterday: 10 loads of laundry [folded and put away], all the floors mopped, rearranged shelving in back porch and organized everything, picked up the whole house and cleaned the kids’ rooms, made all the beds, baked cookies and made cubes with Echo.
Today I’m going to have to take it easy because my back is killing me. It hurts to breathe and that’s never a good sign.
Years ago I read a quote, from Meg Ryan I think, describing her favorite body part. She chose her hands because they were very capable looking.* At the time I found the choice odd. Why not choose something beautiful? Something striking? Of course, that was when I was young. I was never overly concerned with looks, but I had my share of little vanities. Every time I see my grandpa, he talks about how much I remind him of his own mother. I remember her as a very solid looking woman, more handsome than beautiful.
When my sister took out her film camera over the weekend, I went over to check it out. We played around, fiddling with settings and depth of field. We also took pictures of each other. [mine of her | hers of me] Looking at the picture she took of me I had to admit that I do look like my great grandmother. Solid. Capable. Steady. And now, at this point in my life, I’m okay with that. I like that I am becoming more patient, more stoic, more dependable. I like knowing that I can be a fixed point in the whirling chaos of all these kids.
My sister-in-law sent us The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. I really enjoyed this movie. It was one of the few movies I’ve seen that depicts a large family realistically. I also admired the mother. What a gift… to be able to remain patient and happy and positive even when faced with overwhelming obstacles. I’d like to be more like that.
In other news, I made over my ‘office’. I use the term loosely, as it is actually part of the bedroom. The master bedroom used to be two very small rooms. They were opened up to make one larger room and one half serves as our bedroom and the other half is the office. I wanted to paint the walls and ceiling red, but it turned out to be more of a deep pink. It needed a few more coats, but I ran out of paint and energy. I started to cry a bit because it didn’t look very good. Mia cheered me up with one of Mike’s mantras: every color looks great with white trim. She painted the doors bright white and the room looked better right away. She gave me the white bookcase out of her room and had the idea of making a new desk with one of the white doors we took out of the hallway. While I was putting everything back together, she painted an old frame white and made me a picture hanger. She hammered nails in the back and strung them with wire. We bought a new lamp and voila! A new office.
Click on the extended entry for pictures.
*this was ages ago, so I am probably remembering the whole thing wrong but some part of what I read stuck with me
Echo had so much fun fishing last weekend that I decided to buy him his own pole. [In Las Cruces? The new Wal-Mart has Superman fishing combos with a pole and a tackle box on clearance for $4.50.] Needless to say, he loved it. We went to Burn Lake yesterday and practiced casting with the plastic fish. I’ll post pictures when I get the film developed. This morning he decided to fish in the living room and caught the ceiling fan. It was hilarious to watch him ‘fix the problem’.
As soon as I took this picture, I kicked myself for not cleaning up first. What is that on the floor? Some sort of toy? And what’s peeking out from under the couch? Trash? Homework? Last night’s dinner? Looking at this picture makes me cringe. I see beautiful homes all the time. Mike paints some of the prettiest houses in town. Most of them have been professionally decorated. Why does my house look like this? Mike did a great job painting the living room. The faux finish along the bottom looks even better in person. But check out those splotches along the wall on the left. I was holding a candle when Echo ran into me. I dropped it, splashing wax all over the wall. And my arm. The burns healed, but I can’t get that wax off the wall. About that wall… I still haven’t taken down the hooks that we used to hang the stockings at Christmas. And Echo kept playing with my ‘K’ so I hung it up so he couldn’t get it. I ran out of nails to hang up our plaques on the other wall.The list goes on and on. I need to do something about this because it is driving me crazy.
Several weeks ago, Echo flushed some of my makeup down our toilet. Now we have to use the plunger every time we go to the bathroom. Since Mike had some time off yesterday he decided to take the toilet up and fix the problem. Our bathroom is super tiny; it doesn’t even have enough room for a bathtub. The plan was to replace the floor [stick on vinyl tiles] with real tile while we had the toilet out. Kill two birds with one stone. We have had the new pedastal sink sitting in the closet for over a year, so the only expense was going to be two boxes of tile and a couple hours of Mike’s time. Or so we thought…
When he pulled out the toilet and the old tiles, he discovered that the floor was ruined. Whoever remodeled that bathroom did a half ass job. Instead of using a cement board, they used raw wood under the floor and in the shower. The water had rotted out most of it. Mike had to rip out the bad stuff and try to dry out the rest. He patched the floor with cement and put in a new floor out of Durock. A job that should have taken a few hours is now taking a few days. Today he will lay the tile in the morning and go fishing in the afternoon. Tomorrow he will grout, install the sink/toilet and paint.
