Month: June 2012

This old house and my arthritic fingers

Yes. So I didn’t post anything yesterday. And I didn’t think that much about it because I thought I’d already written at some point that I wasn’t going to stress myself out with pressure to write every day this summer so I can take time to smell the roses and the sunscreen and the chlorine.

But then I woke up yesterday morning and P asked, “Did you decide not to write anything last night?” And I realized I’d only had that conversation, like so many others, with myself inside my head.

So here’s where I’m writing the disclaimer that I may not write every day this summer. Or I might. I don’t know and I can’t commit one way or the other. We’ll just see how it goes and every now and then I may take a little break so I don’t miss out on all the fun to be had.

Truthfully, sometimes writing in summer is easier because I stay up way late after everyone else goes to bed, knowing I can sleep late the next morning. But swim team has currently shot that plan to heck and I have to be up with the chickens and the swimmers.

And now I’ve gone on way too long about why I may or may not write and why anyone may or may not care. This is the blog equivalent of contemplating my navel. Which is a phrase I’ve never really cared for.

Anyway, the main reason I didn’t write yesterday (There I go again. Blah, blah, blah.) was because I had to watch The Bachelorette to find out if Emily finally got rid of Ryan. Oh, and also because we’d worked on the guest room all day and I could no longer feel my fingers.

Why couldn’t I feel my fingers? Well because the people who owned this house back in 1930 or 1940 or sometime before wallpaper was applied with glue, decided that they wanted wallpaper. And apparently this was achieved by nailing a bunch of mesh into the wall every 1/4 centimeter. Except they wouldn’t have used centimeters because that’s before the Europeans tried to brainwash American children with the metric system.

(Does anyone else remember that mammoth VCR/TV combo being wheeled into your math classroom and watching some show about Metric Man?)

P and one of his employees came in last Thursday and pulled out the rest of the sheetrock in a matter of a few hours. Which was significantly faster than the eighteen years it would have taken me to do it by myself. And most of the old wallpaper ripped away from the wall fairly easily. But little bits of this cotton mesh stuff was embedded behind little tiny nails. It was too short to really cut it away but too long to leave it.

So we burned a lot of it with a lighter. Kids, do not try this at home. This was attempted by professionals. Professional what? I do not know.

The irony is I was really concerned about those pieces of string making the room look bad and never stopped to consider how bad it would look if we burned the whole thing down.

After three days and a countless number of those Bic lighters, I had finally gotten rid of most of the mesh while P scraped off layers of old paint and wallpaper on all the trim. Then I finally busted out my tweezers and tweezed out the rest of the string pieces. I’m pretty sure this is part of the job description for hell. My fingers will never be the same. Nor will my tweezers.

At a real low point on Sunday afternoon I was ready to just paint it and be done with it. Just paint over the old chunks of wallpaper and mesh and what have you. But this is where P and I differ. He is a perfectionist. Sadly, he is married to a “EH, THAT LOOKS CLOSE ENOUGH AND THE BED WILL COVER THAT UP ANYWAY” kind of girl.

So he pushed us through. We adapted and overcame. And by the time Sunday night came, we were a step closer to actually being able to paint even though we’d digressed from a Saturday night high of “WE SHOULD DO THIS TO EVERY ROOM IN THE HOUSE” to “AS GOD IS MY WITNESS I WILL NEVER DO THIS AGAIN”. I never would have finished it without him. It would have all ended with me putting a for sale sign in the front yard and that lady that thought I was Taylor could come and show our house.

On Monday we finally moved on to painting the ceiling and priming the walls. Which is when we discovered that old wood soaks up a lot of paint. Like three coats worth of paint. Like four trips to Home Depot later worth of paint.

We finally decided it was as covered as it was going to get and moved on to painting it the actual color we’d chosen, Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter.

And by Monday night the walls looked beautiful. Now we just had to touch up the trim with fresh paint. I figured it would just be a matter of a few brush strokes here and there where the sheetrock had pulled away paint or we’d gotten fresh paint on the baseboards.

Yes. But that’s working under the assumption that our trim was a glossy ultra white color as opposed to the fact that it was actually more of a glossy off white. A fact I failed to notice until I’d painted enough of the trim to realize the frame around the closet door no longer matched the closet door.

And that’s when I headed for the bottle of tequila.

Not really. Everyone knows you don’t drink tequila while you’re painting. You drink vodka.

I began the arduous task of painting every piece of trim work in that room while I sang old spirituals. Every now and then Caroline would join me long enough to slap on enough paint to produce drip marks, get a little paint on her feet for good measure and walk back out of the room leaving a trail of white footprints down the hallway. And then she got her feelings hurt because she said all I was doing was yelling at her.

First of all, I wasn’t yelling. I didn’t have the strength. Secondly, why did I think summer time was a good time for this project?

Fortunately P walked in about that time and helped me finish the rest of the trim and touch up all the areas we’d missed or messed up. And then it was mercifully done.

I picked up one of Caroline’s friends and we spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. The glorious pool. Where there was no paint or mourning or sadness. Just ice cream and sunshine and the book I’m currently reading.

By the time I got home with the girls, P had cleaned up the entire room. Swept it and everything. I wanted to weep with joy and thankfulness.

And, lo, the room is complete.

(It looks a lot darker in the the bottom picture. I’m not sure why but I’m sure it’s not related to my stellar iPhone photography skills.)

Well, not really complete. We’re talking about putting a twin bed in there instead of a queen. And moving out some of Caroline’s toys to make room for a homework/craft table. And I’d like to get some fun pillows and make it into a great place for her to hang out with her friends.

But then, THEN, it will be finished.

Check back with me in early 2015.
The battle hymn of a daddy

Two weeks ago Caroline spent the night with a friend. And when I picked her up the next day she mentioned that she’d fallen on her arm while they were playing soccer in the front yard and it kind of hurt. I said we could just keep an eye on it and see how it felt in a day or two which is code for I don’t really think anything is wrong except that you stayed up too late last night and are tired and I don’t want to waste a $50 co-pay on a fake injury.

Over the next several days she’d complain about it every now and then but it seemed like it was always worse at bedtime or when I asked her to do something else she didn’t want to do. Like pick up her dirty clothes off the floor and put them in the hamper because I am the meanest mom ever with my unreasonable requests that she practice hygiene and clean up after herself and she’s just going to use that towel again tomorrow so why does it need to be hung up?

But then on Thursday afternoon P and I were working on the guest room wall (That’s an entirely different post at this point. A post where I may rewrite the lyrics to Miranda Lambert’s song The House That Built Me to The House That Killed Me.) and Caroline walked in and said, “I really think I need to go to the doctor. My wrist hurts.”

And it all seemed legitimate since I hadn’t asked her to do anything and it wasn’t time for bed. So I loaded her up in the car and we drove to the medical clinic. They did x-rays and the doctor announced it looked like a tear in her tendon or possibly even a fracture.

That’s when Caroline beamed at me like she’d just won first prize at the County Fair.

Not that we’ve ever been to a County Fair but I hear the kids smile big when they win so I’m going with that analogy since it’s late and I can’t come up with anything else.

They gave her a brace to wear and a referral to go see the Orthopedist Pediatric guy the next day. Here’s Caroline in her brace.

You can see she’s all torn up about it.

And for the next few hours I was treated to running monologue about how she knew something was wrong and I just thought it was nothing and wasn’t I glad that she knew she needed to go to the doctor and see how she was right and I was wrong. I listened as she called Mimi and Bops to give them the news recited a list of people she’d like me to text with a report of her injury and how she was right and I was wrong. Apparently LETTING IT GO isn’t part of her current skill set. But she has got ENJOYING HER ILL HEALTH down to a science.

The next morning we went to see the other doctor. By this time the novelty of that brace had worn off because it was “HOT” and “UGLY” and “I CAN’T USE MY THUMB”. And so I was ready to cry at the thought of facing weeks with her in a cast or in that brace. One of us wouldn’t survive it and I had a feeling it was me.

He looked at the x-rays we brought in and agreed that it was a tear in the tendon and the wrist needed to be immobilized for the next three weeks. Then he offered us the choice of a cast or a waterproof splint. I’m no doctor and I’ve never even played one on T.V. but I knew the waterproof splint was the way to go.

And when the tech walked in with a neon pink, waterproof splint, I knew we were solid gold. Caroline was thrilled with her new fancy bright accessory and that she wouldn’t have to forgo any time in the pool due to her injury. They fitted her arm for the splint, put it on, made a few adjustments and said she needed to wear it 99% of the time.

As a bonus, it’s also anti-microbial which means it won’t smell like a baboon at the end of three weeks. Or at least that’s what they told us. I’ll let you know on July 6th.

After we left the office she called Mimi and Bops to give them the full update from the new doctor and told them all about her hot pink splint. And she was most excited to announce that it wouldn’t interfere with her ability to swim in her swim meet the next day.

Which is why I was so surprised when we woke her up for the meet on Saturday morning and she started to cry and said she didn’t want to go and it was going to be terrible and please don’t make her go and OH THE HUMANITY OF SWIM MEETS.

Have I ever mentioned that 6:00 a.m. isn’t my most coherent time? So I handled this crisis by walking in the kitchen and telling P there was drama brewing in the next room. And P was on the case. He told her she needed to get up and eat her breakfast and that her team was counting on her. In our family we follow through on commitments. In our family we persevere. He even pulled out a quote from a Navy Seal and told her that in life when challenges come we ADAPT AND OVERCOME.

It was like being in the kitchen with General Patton.

I kind of wanted to salute.

Or maybe hum of few bars of The Battle Hymn of The Republic.

And it’s times like this that I’m so glad he takes charge because I’m not so much an ADAPT AND OVERCOME type person as a CRY AND BE DRAMATIC AND OH MY POOR BABY HAS A HURT ARM type person. Especially at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday.

So she dried her tears, put on her swimsuit and we headed to the swim meet. Where she ended up winning three first place ribbons and two second place ribbons.

Because she adapted and overcame.

It helped that everyone told her how awesome her hot pink waterproof splint was and how tough she was to still be competing. “EVEN SOME TEENAGERS”.

On the way home from the meet she was tired but glowing. She was thrilled with her success and that she didn’t give up. And it was a reminder to me, on the eve of Father’s Day, how much I need to P to help me with this whole parenting thing.

Honestly, I would have been tempted to let her stay home and skip the meet. And she wouldn’t have learned anything or won any ribbons or experienced the feeling of accomplishment. The right thing was to make her go and to follow through with her commitment. It’s a lesson I’m still learning because I’ve always been tempted to quit when things get hard or to take the easy way out. It’s one of the things I hate about myself.

I think that’s why it meant so much to me to see her learn such a valuable life lesson on Saturday. And it made me thankful that not only was I raised by a great dad who has taught me all kinds of important things over the past forty years, but that I’m married to a great dad who is doing the same for Caroline.

And I’m more than happy to hum a few bars of inspirational music while he does it.
Fashion Friday: Edition this has been a day

This is going to be quick because I spent most of the day helping P tear the rest of the sheetrock of the wall. Please note that I said helping P because he pretty much took over the project to my great relief and now I just need to do some clean up and prep the walls before I paint them.

I also ended up taking Caroline to the doctor where we discovered that she may have torn a tendon or have a stress fracture in her wrist. She fell at a friend’s house about a week ago and had complained about it on and off but I thought she was being dramatic since the bulk of the complaints seemed to crop up around bedtime.

Apparently I was wrong.

So we’re going to see another doctor in the morning to find out more.

And there goes my dream of being voted mother of the year.

Anyway, here are a few cute things. I think. This is a weird time of year for clothes because it’s so dang hot and I pretty much live in running shorts and a t-shirt.

1. encourage top

I think this would be so cute with white jeans. Or white shorts. Either way.

2. sweet summer afternoon flats

Have I mentioned that I really don’t like to wear flats unless they’re sandals? My foot doesn’t like to be fenced in. It likes to be free to move around.

But these are cute if you’re a fan of flats.

3. gauze skirts

I’m such a fan of the summer skirt. Throw on a t-shirt or a tank top and you’re good to go.

Or you could be like me and just wear running shorts.

4. me and my honey bag

This is a really fun bag for summer.

5. eyelet shell tank

I love this.

6. crochet wedges

These are perfect for summer and they come in black too.

7. daisy of the week top

This is the perfect top to throw on all summer long.

8. pink ankle jeans

I really want some pink jeans. And these are on sale.

9. ruffle tank

Love this. Think I might have put it on Fashion Friday before but I can’t remember because my brain is tired.

10. striped tank dress

I tried this on in Gap the other day and really liked it. It’s the perfect dress to throw on all summer and it would make a cute coverup.

And that’s it for today.

Y’all have a great Friday.
This was Wednesday. It was uneventful.

Yesterday started off a little rough. Caroline and I decided it was a good morning to skip swim practice and sleep in because man cannot live by butterfly stroke alone. And P even remembered to turn the air conditioning down before he left for work so the house was super cold and utterly delightful.

But then my phone rang and it was the sweet lady who cleans our house once a month. She was at the front wondering if we were home because it was her day to clean the house even though I thought she was supposed to come on Thursday morning. And so I let her in while I was still in my pajamas which felt just as worthless as it sounds.

Then I had to scurry around and pick up and straighten all the things I normally do the night before she comes because everyone knows you can’t let your housekeeper see how messy you are.

So basically I started my day with an inconvenience that’s so absurd it goes beyond first world problem.

Caroline was determined to enjoy our lazy morning so we hid out in my bedroom until she was finally ready to get dressed so we could go run all our fun errands. Like the bank! And to take P a sandwich at his job site!

And to White House Black Market to return a jumpsuit that I thought I’d love but had an unfortunate fit in the front that made me look less chic and more Sally O’Malley.

Then we met my sister and niece for lunch and it was fun to catch up. But poor Sarah really wanted to come back to our house and play and couldn’t understand why our playroom full of toys was all torn up. The answer is “because your Aunt Mel is a little obsessed right now and also forgot that maybe she should have cleared everything out of the room before she started tearing down walls”. I told her she could come play next week when the room was finished and Caroline looked at me out of the corner of her eye and said, “You really think that room is going to be finished in a week?”

Why is everyone a critic?

After lunch Caroline and I ran around to several stores in town because I was shopping for a friend and eventually made our way home where I fell on the couch in a heap because the heat is going to kill me. And then I had to think about cooking dinner which is when I made the executive decision to make chalupas because they’re easy and require little to no effort. At least they require little to no effort when you actually have beans and lettuce.

We loaded back up in the car to run in HEB to buy lettuce and refried beans and some Tic-Tacs that Caroline talked me into because I didn’t have the strength to argue about it.

But by the time we made it home, P had gotten some of his employees to clean up a lot of the sheetrock from the playroom AND told me he’s going to have them come back in the morning to help him finish tearing out the rest of the walls. Then I’ll just have to decide if I want to paint them white or gray or some other color that I haven’t thought about yet.

Thursday? You’re looking pretty good.

Maybe the room actually will be finished in a week and that’ll teach Caroline not to question her mother.

And now I’m going to go watch the new Dallas on T.V. because I need to see Larry Hagman’s eyebrows to believe them.
Tear down that wall

Yesterday was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the speech Ronald Reagan made at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin challenging Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”. Of course this was in 1987 so I only have vague memories of the actual event since at the time I was busy spiral curling my hair, teasing my bangs to new gravity-defying heights and wondering if George Michael from Wham! would ever love me back. As it turns out, communism had better odds for success.

And since I’m such a knowledgable history buff (as long as by knowledgable you mean that most of what I know about the Revolutionary War I learned from watching Mel Gibson in The Patriot) I decided that I’d commemorate the historic challenge issued by President Reagan by tearing down a wall of my own. Specifically, the walls in our guest bedroom.

That’s actually not really why I decided to tear down the walls in our guest bedroom yesterday, but it makes for a compelling story. Plus it’s a lot more interesting than the actual story and you have to admit it feels serendipitous that I chose June 12th as the day to tear down a wall. It’s like it was meant to be and I’m hoping it bodes well for the overall success of my spontaneous decision.

What really happened was the Texas drought. We live in an old house on a pier and beam foundation and the severe drought caused our house to undergo some shifting. Which is a nice way of saying that the walls in our guest bedroom bore the brunt of the damage and the sheet rock was actually cracked and jutting out from the walls. It looked terrible. Like so bad that Gulley’s son Will was scared to go in there because he thought spiders might live in those holes in our wall.

But P said there wasn’t any point in fixing it until the house stabilized a little because it would just crack again. So we’ve had gaping sheetrock for over a year. It’s super classy. Think Martha Stewart in a crack house.

About a month ago we began to get bids from various people about fixing the cracks in that room along with some other more minor cracks we have in the living and dining rooms. And it was at some point about two weeks ago when one of the men bidding on the job said, “You know, you could always just tear out this sheetrock in here and have some really cool exposed wood walls even though it looks like they might have some wallpaper on them.”

And I thought that sounded mildly interesting but like it had the potential to be a lot of work and trouble and mess. Then Gulley and I went to visit Jen and I noticed that they have exposed wood walls in their house which was built around the same time as ours, as in the days when walls were made of solid rows of 2 x 10s or 1 x 10s or whatever it took.

Then I realized that Gulley’s husband had created a similar look in their master bedroom. And, finally, I saw this picture on Pinterest.

Source: thecastingdock.com via Halley on Pinterest

So Monday night I casually mentioned to P, “What if we just tore out that sheetrock in the guest bedroom and had exposed wood walls that we could paint?” And he got up from where he was sitting, walked into the guest bedroom and tore an enormous chunk of sheetrock off the wall while he said, “It would be easy enough to do. You could totally do it.”

And I was so pleased with his enthusiasm and the ease with which he appeared to tear part of the wall down that I missed the emphasis on the word “YOU”.

With great enthusiasm and vigor I set out to tear down the walls yesterday morning after Caroline and I got home from swim practice. I even had a crow bar. The first section of the wall tore away with almost no problem which gave me a false sense of confidence, but the other sections didn’t budge quite so easily.

Fortunately, Gulley’s boys came over to stay for a little while so she could run a few errands and I sold the kids on the fun of tearing down walls. Otherwise known as free child labor.

But I quickly realized they all needed to have on some sort of safety goggles.

Or maybe just goofy-looking goggles. Either way.

By the end of the afternoon we had created an unholy mess, enough dust to give us asthma for years to come, and fun summertime memories of that time I made them think tearing down the walls in our guest room was better than summer camp.

But it must have worked because the last thing Caroline said to me as I tucked her in bed was, “Mama, I can’t wait to tear down some more of that wall tomorrow.”

I bet that’s just how Gorbachev felt.
If I named this what I’m thinking I would owe Michael W. Smith an apology

So I think I left off with my bangs yesterday.

My bangs that I really like when I take the time to blow them dry and fix the rest of my hair but are currently pulled back in a bobby pin because it was 102 degrees today and I couldn’t deal.

On Tuesday night, while Missy was still at the house and we were evaluating Pinky and Pinky’s cheap sister, Angie dropped by and we decided it might be fun to go toilet paper someone’s house.

(I would say wrap a house. Some people say roll a house. Maybe it’s regional? Or generational? I don’t know.)

Anyway, I can’t really explain why we were so enamored with the idea other than it’s perfectly normal for a bunch of forty-year-old women to load up a twelve pack of Charmin and hit the neighborhood. Initially we were going to wrap our friend Hite, but ultimately decided on our friends Jamie and Trevor because they have three boys ages ten and under and would never suspect us because who does that?

We do.

So we woke up Jen’s husband to let him know we’d be back in a little while after we finished wrapping a house and to his credit he didn’t even question us or our sanity. Then we loaded up in the car, piled the toilet paper in the baby’s carseat and headed out like a group of twelve-year-old girls. Except without all the fake drama.

As we circled the block calculating our plan of attack, Angie voiced a concern that the police might show up and arrest us. But we decided we could explain that Jen couldn’t spend the night in jail since she had chemo early the next morning and a baby waiting for her at home.

Yes.

This is a normal scenario.

Ultimately we parked right in front of Jamie and Trevor’s house and went to work. Sadly, it became evident that our toilet-papering skills weren’t what they used to be. I must have thrown one roll of Charmin in the air fifty times before I could get it over a tree limb.

(I realize this is a horrible photo but I was scared of getting caught and trying to be very stealth-like.)

Our decidedly un-ninja like skills paid off and we made a clean getaway.

Then we went home and crashed.

The next morning Gulley and I kept Linc while Jen went to chemo and we decided we’d forgotten how exhausting it is to have a one-year-old baby. I’m sad to report that it took both of us to change his diaper even though I tried to be a self-righteous diaper changer and told Gulley, “Here, just let me do it” right before he squirmed out of my reach and crawled his naked bottom away from us as fast as he could. That’s when Gulley looked at me and announced, “It’s only 9:15.”

But Missy showed up to cut my bangs and then our friend Hite stopped by to visit and showed us his car with its new fancy technology.

Assuming that you time travel back to the early 90s when built-in car phones with a cord were fancy.

Hite helped us load up Linc and we went to lunch so we could visit more and eat this plate of cheese fries.

Seriously.

Heart attack on a plate.

We felt like it was a developmental milestone to introduce Linc to his first plate of cheese fries. But we made sure he steered clear of the jalapenos.

After lunch we all needed a nap. We put the baby to bed and Gulley and I both collapsed, ready to crash. Unfortunately this was timed with a surprise visit from some of Jen’s relatives who decided to stick around and keep us company and share all manner of theories on life. None of which I really wanted to hear, but felt forced to nod politely instead of saying, “WELL, GOODBYE NOW. I NEED A NAP.”

The good news is Jen made it home from chemo, took a nap and then felt fine the rest of the night. We were able to catch up some more and eat dinner and just enjoy being together. But we refrained from wrapping any more houses.

I told Gulley that night as we crawled into bed that our visit to Dallas caused my inner junior high girl to come out. In the span of twenty-four hours I let someone I barely know cut my hair just because I thought hers looked cute and threw a twelve-pack of perfectly good toilet paper all over a friend’s yard. All I needed was to call someone and hang up when they answered and then unlock my diary and write all about the heartache of seventh grade while listening to Air Supply and the cycle would have been complete.

But more than haircuts or chemo or toilet paper, our time in Dallas was so precious to me. Gulley, Jen and I met over twenty years ago. We’ve been through deaths, births, breakups, marriages, career changes and every other form of drama you can imagine. We’ve laughed and cried and gotten on each other’s nerves and run up phone bills back in the days when long distance calls still existed.

There is something that is indescribable about old friends. You can tell new friends about a story from your past and they may laugh and appreciate it, but the old friends lived it with you. They remember the 1965 Mustang you all had to push across Villa Maria the night it died or that you’ve never been a fan of someone asking how you REALLY are or those ugly red jeans from Express that you never should have worn. You can tell them a story without having to fill in all the details because they know them already. They can look across the table at you and say, “That situation hasn’t changed in twenty years” and make you feel normal because you know they get it. They get you. With all your flaws and quirks and insecurities.

They’re your family when you need a family. Your therapist when you need to talk.

And your co-conspirators when you get the urge to wrap someone’s house.