Paint Chips

Our house needs painting. Ugh. Yes, I do live in the Money Pit, thank you very much for asking. We are not going to paint it this year, but we decided to paint the garage and since I have wanted it to match the house I have had to decide what color I wanted the house. I have long been considering going with a different color than white, but with our very overbearing, as it were, red roof, our options are a bit more limited. Plus I would like to choose something that would add rather than detract from our historical neighborhood. Mostly, I don't want to be the house that causes passerby to shake their heads and mutter, "Oh dear. How unfortunate." At first, I wanted to be bold with a pale gray or light, light, blue (oh, that doesn't count as bold?), but after doing one coat of light blue on the garage (not very pretty-making, actually quite taste-missing) it looks like white is the color our house wants to be. Forever.

Next we finally decided to paint the shelves in Charlie's room. They easily win the prize for being the ugliest thing in our house (now that the basement bathroom is finished) and were the thing that I was going to fix first when we moved in six years ago. So to pick a color ~~ the utter and complete agony of it all! I cannot believe how I can turn something that should be a fun activity into something so stress inducing. I take it all into my gut and work and rework how it will look and what will be best. I don't like to paint so I have to do it right the first time. Who knows when I will get up the gumption to fix a mistake? So there is quite a lot of pressure there. Once again I think I should go for something strong. Black, or a deep green, steel gray perhaps... and once again we went with white and it looks fabulous. I like white. I will just accept it.

Pictures late-ah!

Change the World

I am a total slacker blogger. I have been a slacker everything lately. The big problem here is that I am not exactly sure what I have been doing. On our epic continental journey, we heard a great talk by John Bytheway called "Turn off the T.V. and Get a Life." He talked about how much we can accomplish if we make better choices. I don't have a t.v. problem, but I definitely waste time. It is kind of depressing. Perhaps I should go into the corner over there and mull it over for a bit...

An hour later I have discovered that I spend quite a significant amount of time staring into space. I think much too much about my house ~~ and more specifically curtains, paint colors, and carpets which would be fine I suppose if I acted on my decisions and my house looked wonderful, but more often than not, I just move on to the next obsession having done nothing at all. The bottom line is that I should plan my time better. To accomplish this I decided to write down all of the thoughts that drift aimlessly through my brain; the continuous reverie, the incessant woolgathering. I found myself a piece of paper and (where is it?) a pen ~~ no small task. I sat down with anticipation and ... nothing. I couldn't even think of anything that keeps me up at night. I made a short grocery list while I still had my hands on an actual writing tool and then promptly misplaced the note. Oh well, I did, however, come up with a theme for the school year. I even made a little sign which says, "Change the World ~~ don't let the world change you." I know that my kids can float along absorbing all of the insanity that is out there, or they can try to find their true selves and really accomplish things. I will try to be a better example. Maybe when I am getting more sleep. That's it! The first thing on my list will be sleep.

Last night Ella came in while I was enjoying a soak in our soaker tub and asked if she could practice her speech for school. She told me to give her any pointers I had along the way. She seemed quite nervous ~~ fidgeting and playing with her hair so I gave her the old standard advice. "If you get nervous, just imagine that your audience is naked." We both started laughing so hard (it was terribly late mind you) because, well, you know.

In other news, Matthew came up with a couple of more things for my irritating list. The Normal police department (don't they have better things to do than hide behind trees and give people tickets for coasting down hills going 35 mph?), and when people pronounce Ensign wrong, people who should know better (it used to say in the front of the magazine that "it is not pronounced en-sun," but I guess they have just decided to let it go; very christian of them, but I'm just not there yet. A point for me for not shouting out a correction while I am teaching RS, yea me!)

My Little Pretties

The other day I took a little quiz on facebook and then sent it to my oldest girl. One of the questions was: Do you have any pet peeves? I answered that I had too many to count. Ella answered, "My only pet peeve is people who have pet peeves ~~ stop complaining!" She is so right. I complain about way too many things. I have pet peeves about people using the same names for their kids as I do (just kidding ~~ I am totally over it Stacey ~~ it was just the shock of it all!), spelling errors in books, people who complain about how people do their callings at church (hey, would you like to do everything?), open cupboards, someone saying they will come work on my house, but then don't come, people I don't even know bossing me around by waving me through an intersection (no, you go, it's your turn, let's just follow the rules of the road, okay?), how most places only have diet drinks with caffeine in them ~~ hmm, maybe that is it. I can only think of one more and it needs some introduction. There seems to be road construction going on all over our town. I wondered how there could possibly be enough workers to be maintaining all of these construction sites, but have since decided that there is really only one crew who just wanders around closing random roads at any given time. So! Main Street has been scraped down before being repaved and I get to cross Main Street several times a day. It is 1 inch, maybe 2 inches, lower than the cross streets. Do you have the visual? My absolute most favorite thing is to be behind a huge SUV, the kind made for crazy off-road stunts, the gas-hogging, gotta have my truck, smoke-belching, beast and have it cross Main Street going 1.mile.per.hour. Oh my gracious! It is a little tiny bump people! I bet you could go 3 mph. That way we could all make it through before the light turns red again. There you have it. It's going to give me an ulcer.

Pet peeve is such an interesting notion. The idea that you are taking your irritations and treating them like a little pet. Picking them up to stroke, coddle, and coo in their ears, "There, there, my pretty. I will feed you and nurture you so that you can grow from a mere annoyance and nuisance into full-fledged torment." Ooh, horrible. I need to take my daughter's advice to stop complaining and just relax. Yeah right, it's probably not going to happen. It would be nice, though.

Ofurohhh

Here is one of the tub.

The Reluctant Plumber

Well, here it is. The moment we have all been waiting for ~~ the new bathroom is finally finished! Hip, hip, hooray! We thought that it would never really happen, but here it is a mere 10 months after we started our project and we are the proud owners of 2 full baths. I know it is a little lavish with 7 people in the house, but that is just the kind of extravagant people we are. There were times when we had to practically beg our plumber to come and let us pay him money, but he was nice and just happens to be a victim of what we affectionately call the Bloomington work ethic.

Before:

After:

A little bit of an improvement I suppose.

It isn't quite finished (like a door for under the sink) and we still haven't had a soak in our ofuro, but we are looking forward to it. Can you tell that the tub is 36 inches deep from the pictures? I might have to take another shot sometime. And can you see the little black beaded accent tile that was the most expensive tile in the room? It might as well have been pearls. The little sconces by the sink are from a local old house salvage store and are the same age as our house. My favorite parts are the floor and the black toilet seat. Now I just have to find a shower curtain and you know what? There are a lot of very unappealing choices out there. I have to ask, as I have more than once in my life, why do so many people make so many ugly things when there is so much beauty all around? I did find the perfect shower curtain yesterday at the Urban Outfitters website, but then when I went to buy it a few hours later it was out of stock. It figures. Perfection just ain't my thang.

Badge of Honor

Yesterday was a first for me. Actually yesterday was literally the 1st, and so was a first for everyone, but that happens every single month so it wouldn't be an especially noteworthy topic for a blog post. I guess it could be if one were clever enough, but I won't pretend to be that talented and will now return to why it was a first for me. I sewed scouting badges onto Charles' shirt for the first time in his now long 5 year scouting career. I know! It is the little things that make one proud. I am not quite sure why I haven't done it in the past, but I was told in no uncertain terms a little over a week ago that he was required to show up at scouts with flying colors last night. I tried to explain to the person that his empty scout shirt, bereft of insignia of any sort, was like an outward manifestation of what a lame mom I am. I didn't know if I was quite ready to give that up, so of course, there is me screeching into the parking lot of the scout store 10 minutes before it closes and 1 hour and 10 minutes before he needs to be uniformed at his scout meeting. I come home and we scramble to find the scout shirt, search through drawers for any merit badges he has received, then we scramble to find the now missing bag with all of the badges I just bought. Baby! Then I sit down to start sewing the patches down and have to call my mom for some advice. She is sweet and wishes that she could be there to help me. I have to get off the phone because I have just sewn a huge pucker in his sleeve and have to unpick it (you think he might be embarrassed to have an empty shirt, try seeing it after I get a hold of it), get the council badge, the fleur de lis thing, the troop numbers (why are they all separate?) sideways and slowly marching down his shirt, the lone merit badge we could find on the sash, and put the little ribbons on shoulder buckles. Whew! Did he look more neglected before or not? It is hard to tell. I thought that perhaps I would feel better about myself after accomplishing this little task, but his shirt is still a badge of dishonor for me as a mother. At least I don't have to wear it.

seventeen years

Seventeen years ago today, Matthew and I got married. How could this be? I don't feel that much older than 17 now, but of course I must be. I look back and feel like we hardly knew each other then and know that it was God's hand that brought us together. I always am fascinated by how two people meet, but so easily could have never met, and then decide to never be apart again. The longer we are together the better suited I think we become.

There is one thing that is an irritation to me, but upon reflection (and the viewpoint of my good friend, Berta) it is that very trait that I think makes us infinitely compatible. Sometimes I wish that my husband were more "take charge", if you will. There is something in me that wants to step back and not be responsible for so many things, but I realize that Matthew is merely being very, very nice and no one can say that he isn't one of the most amiable guys you could ever meet.  And I wouldn't be happy with someone who didn't let me do any ole' thing I wanted to. He doesn't care if I want to: cut my hair, dig up the back lawn to plant a garden, have a home birth, take an art class, make strange meals, home school my kids, train to be a Bradley teacher, gain 50 pounds, have more kids, not have more kids, paint the bedroom, buy a 36" inch deep tub, talk about baby names even when I'm not pregnant, stay up late, rant, rearrange the furniture, go to Kmart 12 times in one week when they are having double coupons, not make dinner, watch Pride and Prejudice, be obsessed with things, not stick things out, go on some crazy diet, bring furniture home I found on the side of the road, buy fabric I never use, buy lots of other things I don't need, laugh too hard, start a blog, go to Ikea, worry, visit museums, try another crazy diet, go hours out of our way to visit National Parks, not eat meat, buy all of my clothes at Goodwill, get a new pet, cry about a fictional character in a book, etc.  He just says, "Okay."  Admittedly, more hesitantly at times than others, but mostly he is very supportive of anything I want to do.  What a marvel.

And he is so good.  He wakes up early and spends an hour reading scriptures, meditating, and planning his day.  He makes all kinds of goals and is very good at having dreams for the future. This is one way in which we are so different.  What a great example he is to me of self-mastery and discipline.  I can't plan ahead very far seeing as how I am always pretty sure in the back of my mind that we won't be alive in 5 years.  Why plan?  He is always pointing out that we are a good parenting team and that our kids will be well-rounded coming from two such opposite people.   Also, M is very smart.  I love his reasonable and thought out opinions on music, religion, politics, etc. and we enjoy many energetic exchanges on a wide variety of topics.

Thank you for being a great companion, a wonderful father, and mostly for not only letting me, but helping me, be the best ME possible.