Ready for Company

Ok this is exciting! The paint job in the bathroom is done. You can see for yourself. And it is cute, if I do say so! Everything is put back together. As a sign of doneness we even hung a picture. Not one of the ones I used to have in there, but something 'new'! While we will still put in a new sink, that will get done after Easter and after everyone is gone. Heavens we don't want the family to have to live in a mess with us. (they've done that plenty of times when they were young. Enough already) But even that is an exciting prospect. I was just telling someone what possessed me to start this project just before company came. I had a revelation while sitting on the pot. It just came over me. ARGH and EEEK! I can't live one more day with this hideous wall paper. 5 years is enough. (and this after my trip to Haiti no less. You'd think I'd learned something about thankfulness for my blessings which includes hideous wallpaper in a perfectly functioning bathroom) Anyway. There you have it. And we even met our deadline. Stress and all. Thank you Lord.

The Best Job in the World!

Today I got to enjoy the best part of my job--sitting and reading! Of course, I must read in order to know how to accurately catalog all these cool books! Every single one of them was a children's book, so I actually got through quite a few of them. This is as opposed to young adult or adult which are just too long to actually read through a whole book in one sitting (though many times I have been sorely tempted)I'll be working on those on Monday, so maybe I'll have more to share with you then! But, let me tell you about some of the cutest books I read today, then you can head right up to the library (or hey, Barnes and Nobles works, too. Just stand in a corner there and read them) and check out your own copy to read to your kids:





Martina the beautiful Cockroach, a Cuban folktale by Carman Agra.


Thelonious Monster's sky high Fly Pie by Judy Sierra

Cottonball Colin by Jeanne Willis


Wolf Wolf by John Rocco


If I were to summarize the four of these I would have to use the word "absolutely the funniest tales I've read in awhile!" (how's that for a 'word'?) Take my word for it, you won't be disappointed! In fact, you will appreciate them far more than your kids will. I'd venture to say they won't 'get it'. But you will! So really, you don't even have to check them out and bring them home. Just sit in a quiet corner and take a couple of minutes to read them. You'll be laughing all the way home!
I read more than 30 books today, and I could review them all, but these are the best of them! I tell you, "What a job"! I have got to write a book as clever as one of these someday. Oh wait. I have! I just need a publisher.

Two Dog Day

While I was in Haiti one of the little girls was telling me how cold it got down there. She told me that one night they had a 4 blanket night! I couldn't imagine how cold that was, as I never needed more than a thin blanket for my entire visit. And I was there during their cold season! I can imagine a 4 blanket night, here, though and you all know that that would be pretty darn cold! But how about this for measuring the day: A Two Dog day. 2 dogs to curl up with you when you're napping. 2 Dogs to beg food from you. 2 Dogs to walk, 2 dogs for everything that you've been used to 1 dog for! This measuring stick not only tells you how warm you can get, it tells you how crazy you are! We have 2 Bostons in the house for the rest of the week! Yup, we're dog sitting again. That means that when the whole family is here, we'll actually have 3 dogs, 3 kids and 10 adults. My house is bursting at the seams. And the bathroom isn't done either. Oh well....

Patience and Progress

I would title this Progress, because there is indeed progress. Seems that two coats of paint for a bright red aren't so unusual. sigh. But done? It ain't gonna happen by Friday. sigh again.

I know. I am short on patience. In fact, if I were working on any aspect of my character,trying to become a better person, Patience would be the first place I would need to start in. I'm sure no one else is surprised by this, not even I am. My patience testing activities include standing in lines , having piles of things 'to do' and a short amount of time to do them in. People who are slow (a. driving. (b. figuring things out (myself included in this one). Waiting for God to answer prayers. I hate waiting. Have I said that before? I think I'm a product of the culture that I live in. Instant relief for whatever ails me is the order of the day. (And that includes the instantaneous change in an ugly bathroom that I've lived with for, oh, five years for pete's sake) Hurry, don't wait anymore; take things into your own hands. Maybe others have noticed this about me. I know that I have often joked that I shouldn't pray for patience, because God just might actually answer that prayer. And according to James the answer to the prayer for patience is often accompanied by suffering. Whoa! Don't want any of that. Though I did hear someone say that even in that prayer, we should be able to trust a loving God to answer that prayer in a wise way. Hmmmm.

Well, I'm having a heaping big dish of patience for supper tonight. Care to join me?

Bathroom Remodel Saga Continued

I think there must be something about the way I live that does this to me: invite a houseful of guest, or have a holiday coming up and it's time to load on the stress of a remodel project. I distinctly remember thinking: "We could paint this room in time for Easter". Then I got Ron involved. Suddenly it's way bigger than that. As you can see, we ripped out the cupboard (too big and space consuming) tore off all the wallpaper and put on a coat primer. Instead of staying home to finish painting, we went to Lowe's and got a new bathroom vanity and cupboard. It needs a new floor, too, but for the Love! We'd never get all that done! So for the moment I have to remember that it IS Sunday, a day of rest, and I shall not nag my husband about the actual painting. ARGH! I think it will still smell like fresh paint on Easter Sunday! Sorry about that guys. But at least the front room should be cleaned up.

I could make this post really a lot longer telling you story after story of how we started projects just before something was due, or company was coming, or....
like the time we were getting an exchange student to live with us for a whole year and Ron chose the night before we went to the airport to pick him up to tear off all the plaster in our living/dining room so we could sheet rock it-ceiling included. We were lucky we had most of the dust cleared out by the next afternoon anyway. Poor kid was game, I'll give him that. He helped put it all back up over the course of the next several months.
Anyway, you get the idea.