Sundays with Stretchy Pants

Remember the other day when I said I might paint my entryway? Well, in a surprisingly not feckless move on my part, I painted the first coat that very day. It looks lovely, but I’m out of paint. I’ll get some for the second coat soon, I promise. Definitely by summer.

About that paint job…you know how I was born in Michigan and raised to be a UofM fan? And you know how The Ohio State University hates the Wolverines? And you know how I don’t really like to wear UofM garb this close to campus because dummies make snide comments? And you know how one time at Bryan’s old job his anti-UofM boss wrote him up for a safety violation for having a UofM pen sticking pointy side up in his pen thing? (Oh yes he did! Bryan had to petition to get it off his record and everything!) And you know how we bought a house right here in Columbus where everybody hates U o fM? Well, I subconsciously wrote Columbus a passive-aggressive note when I painted my living room and entryway:

*looks better in real life*

I think the note says, “Suck it, Buckeyes. GO BLUE!” Yeah, I pretty much painted my house maize and blue. By accident. Technically, it’s sweet maple and sweet sea or something like that, but still. I didn’t even realize it until I looked at it with Bryan and said, “I just really like how those colors look together,” and he very excitedly said, “Hell yes you do! Maize and blue, baby!” And I think he clapped.

Apparently, I’m a huge fan of college sports.

And I’m a little excited about it.

Help me, people. I’ve gone insane.

My dryer hasn’t been drying my clothes very well and I read in a forwarded email that I should scrub the lint filter with a nylon brush until I can run water through it with no puddles forming. So I did it.

Do you see what January has made me do?

Also, I think I’m going to paint the wall that has been painted like this for at least 6 months:

I guess I got all burned out on painting after doing the basement, Lena’s room, Liberty’s room, Maya’s room, my room, the living room, the kitchen, and the dining room. I thought I had enough in me to do this small entryway, but once I put the blue on the wall, I lost steam in a big way.

Maybe this little project will kick off the finishing of a couple of other little projects, but I doubt it. I still need to paint a small hallway, and the stairway that leads to the basement. And the computer room. Damn, I forgot about the computer room. There’s a lot of crap in that room. Oh, and I want to repaint the kitchen and part of the dining room. I probably won’t, but still.

I’m busy and maybe I’m still in mourning. I don’t know. I paint stuff and take the kids to the pool and think about Michael Jackson and Walter Cronkite and run and play variations of hide-and-seek, but blogging hasn’t been on my to-do list.

We’re heading to Michigan today (not Cluck & Tweet’s Michigan, but still). My sister and I will beat my my nephew’s girlfriend and my niece in tennis on Saturday morning and then we’ll spend the rest of the day gloating about that while the kids swim in the pond and play with their cousin Riley. Sunday, there will be an Aldrich family reunion, and then a childless trip home as the kids are staying a few days in order to camp with my inlaws. What will we do with no children? Paint, of course. I’m going to paint 14 hours a day for 3 days. I hope I finish the whole house. After  my 14 hours of painting, Bryan and I will eat at restaurants and maybe go to Zoombezi Bay one night. Who knows? We’re crazy kids, we could do anything! ANYTHING! As long as the painting gets done, I mean. The painting must get done. I will miss the children because they rock, but they’ll be in good hands and they’ll still rock when they get back. And the walls will be painted. Yay!

Oh, and new toilet! Monday! Plumber!

As usual, don’t break in while we’re gone and make sure you cry because you miss us. If you could videotape yourself crying and post it on Youtube, that would be a bonus. I’ll give you bonus points. (You didn’t know I’ve been giving you all points all this time? I won’t take away any points for that).

We hired somebody to do the tile in the basement bathroom and Liberty has nick-named him “Old Man Cheezer.” I don’t know why. He is an old man, but he doesn’t smell like cheese and I’ve not seen him snacking on cheese.

Soon, when Old Man Cheezer’s work is done, our plumber (”Young Man Crackerz, with a ‘z’” says Lena) will be able to get in there and  get that place toileted up. Then the big children won’t have to carry their tired tushies all the way upstairs and to the other side of the house in the wee hours of the morning when the tinkle fairy comes. They’re very sad and sleepy when that happens. Every morning I hear them dragging themselves up the stairs and through the house whimpering, “When is our bathroom gonna be dooooonnnnnne?” The poor babies. The worst part is, when Maya (whose bedroom is right next to the bathroom on the main level) hears the walking dead, she races to the bathroom and locks herself in there shouting, “I have to go peeeeeee! Really baaaaaad!” And then I imagine she silently cackles while Lena and/or Liberty stand outside the door yelling, “Hurry UP!” I told them the toilet would be in there this week. I lied. Old Man Cheezer is going out of town today and he won’t be back to finish his job until Monday. Then we’ll schedule Young Man Crackerz.

And now, Maya would like to tell you about this:

The water is super, super,  super, super, super deep and nobody can touch. Moms and dads can’t touch. Big girls can’t touch. Teenagers can’t touch. Little girls can’t touch. Toddlers can’t touch. Babies can’t touch. There should be a baby diving board in the baby pool. <At this point, she switches to a commercial announcer voice> So come here and dive! It’s where the water slide is! And if you lay down on your back, you go super fast! And if you sit up, you go slow. So come here and dive off the little board and dive off the platform and dive off the medium board! So I want you to come here and diiiiiiive! It’s fun! And how you dive is you bend down and put your hands over your head together and make sure your hands go in first and then straighten your legs. Bye bye!

And she also wants to tell you about the water slide.

Hello, my name is Maya and I’m going to tell you about the water slide! Yay! The water slide is fun, you should come at the swimming pool and this is the same place where I talked about the diving board, so come here and go swimming! And you can do a bunch of stuff, but you can only go down on your butt on the water slide, so you have to come here and swim because <singing> it’s summer time, it’s summer time, and I love summer time! Now you sing it! The slide is swirly because it doesn’t go straight down because when you start going you go left, right, left, right, left, right, and at the end you’re in water. Right now come to the swimming pool! <singing> Boom boom, boom boom, boom boom. Bye bye!

If you’re my friend on facebook or flickr, you’ve already seen this stuff. But I think some of my blog friends aren’t on facebook or twitter, and, well, I don’t want to deprive them of the fascinating and not at all boring adventures of our reacquaintance with home ownership.

Did you all have a nice Mother’s day whatever? Are you all enjoying my birthday month? I hope so, because I have a present for you. Remember when the basement looked like this:

Now it looks like this:

I painted it and now it never gets messy ever. That’s how you know I’m a good mom.

Ok, technically, it looks like this right now:

But it’s not my fault a Bitty Baby factory exploded all over it. I don’t know why there’s a hammer on the floor. I’m a little bit concerned about that.

I know the rug doesn’t go with the room, but it’s covering up the burn marks from when the vandals tried to burn it down, so I guess it has to stay. I also finished the basement bedrooms. Liberty’s:

I had to add a couple more dots yesterday, though, because when I moved the furniture back, it covered some up and made it look like there were too many dead spots. So there are now a couple of dots to the right of that window:

I finished Lena’s room, too. Here’s her favorite wall:She chose a different color for each wall, with peace signs on just the yellow. Here are the other walls:

Apparently, you can’t click them to big them up, but oh well.

It’s not all beautification around here, though. Bryan threw this bathroom away over the weekend:

The shower in it (what, no picture? I don’t know why.) was all moldy and grosser even than the toilet and sink, so it’s all ripped out now. Because we throw ugly away in this house.

Oh my goodness, did you fall asleep? Me too. I’m sorry there’s nothing happening in my life right now besides this house. I’ll try to make this next bit a little more sexy and fascinating for you, through liberal use of exclamation points. Ready? Here you go:

You won’t believe what I get to do now! I have to go clean the mold! Off of the walls! In the yucky bathroom!