Frankie has a massive load of diarrhea on the front hall tiles this morning.
Stephen found it, cleaned it up.
When he told me about finding the huge pile of steaming poop, I fully admitted it was my fault.
I gave him something I shouldn't have.
Obviously, I won't do that again.
But I am SO happy I didn't have to clean it up.
I am a terrible wife.
I know.
July is going to be far more productive than June.
At least in terms of the house.
Stephen and I have agreed to take the second week of July off in order to paint our bedroom.
I get three weeks vacation, so it seems that using a week in August for basking and basting at the beach still leaves me with two weeks.
And knowing how things happen around here, if it isn't scheduled, it doesn't happen.
Plus Stephen needs time to mentally prepare.
Every other room upstairs has been painted with the exception of our bedroom. . .
. . . and the hallway.
In fact, some rooms that have been painted are actually due for another.
The bathroom for one.
And Em's room.
But Em is paying for the paint for her room.
Purple.
Which isn't any better or worse than her last set of choices.
When she was in grade 7, so about five years ago, she picked out a comforter with green, orange and yellow and then decided those were the colors she wanted in her room.
Consequently, one wall is this gorgeous, vibrant orange.
Another is green.
The green didn't show up as well as it should have. The slice to the left is actually more reminiscent of the color. I would have taken another picture, but Em was sleeping when I snuck into her room to take this.
And I didn't want to risk waking the Kraken.
No picture is worth that.
And the remaining two are yellow.
But now, entering her final year of high school, possessing a beginners drivers licence, owning a car, planning for university, she is ready to update her room to something more in keeping with where she is at this point in her life.
Purple.
She has a lovely satiny purple duvet.
And an incredible eye for color.
All will go well.
Except we'll probably have to prime her room before any painting occurs.
Some of those colors are pretty vibrant.
More than one coat of primer may be required.
We will help of course.
It's the only way I know they'll help with the kitchen.
Guilt.
A mother's best friend.
We have the paint for our room.
We've had it since last summer.
And if this scheduling plan works, I may take another week off to paint the kitchen cupboards.
With the kids help, of course.
Because that will be a much bigger job.
I first bought this house when I was a graduate student.
Of all the rooms, the kitchen was the most immediately disastrous.
Carpet in the dining room.
The dining room, if you can imagine that.
Although my grandmother had carpet in her dining room.
But it was patterned.
Nothing was visible beyond the whirls and swirls of red, black, yellow, orange, goldenrod.
It was actually hard to eat in there if you looked at the carpet.
It caused vertigo.
But the carpet in this house was not patterned.
It was just a light baby shit brown.
And within a month of three kids eating in the dining room, it looked as if it had been attacked by ravenous, salivating beasts.
Which, in a way, it was.
There was a room divider.
Between the kitchen and the living room.
Floor to ceiling and ugly as sin.
Fake paneling with itty bitty cubbies just big enough to hold knicks knacks and doodads.
That lasted about six months and one day, nauseated by it's ugliness, I tore it out.
And then proceeded to rip up the carpet, thinking that what was underneath couldn't be any worse.
It wasn't.
Just subfloor.
And we lived with that until, for Christmas, my mother bought and paid linoleum and its installation.
My problem: I'm great at deciding what I don't want, but never able to do much to replace it.
The cupboards were a dark, dark color.
Making the kitchen look like a mausoleum.
So I had them painted by a friend of mine.
Pink and green.
I know. I know.
I should have been smoking better drugs.
Not being blessed with Em's sense of color, I never thought about what the colors would look like with the black, yes, black countertop and the funky 70s linoleum.
Ignore the belly begging Frankie.
The point is the floor.
At least not until it was all done and I was able to see it.
Eventually Stephen came along and many of the downstairs household issues were addressed.
New windows in the basement.
Painting of the living room.
Which included the removal of the black, floral border around the room.
Last summer was the installation of the laminate floor.
Things are progressing.
Albeit slowly, but progressing.
The biggest reason for the slow progression is, in part, related to money.
We don't have credit cards.
Not because we can't, but because we made the conscious choice not to.
Quakers are supposed to live simple lives.
Not be concerned with material things.
For the most part, I'm not.
As anyone who has ever been here will tell you.
The nice things we have here have all been given to us.
We don't seek them out.
People find it odd that we don't have credit cards.
Just last night, the topic came up during my book club meeting.
What it means, essentially, is that if we don't have the cash for something, we don't buy it.
Granted, we have to wait for things, or repair things instead of replace them.
But I find this preferable to the panic of receiving credit card bills, worrying about how much they'll be.
I get enough of that with the cell phone bill.
There are times when credit cards are needed.
Like when we rent cars.
Usually my dad will put the rental on his credit card and we just hand him over the cash.
Right away.
Keith has a credit card.
I was worried when he got it.
But I can't make him adopt our philosophy.
And so far, so good.
But he's responsible with money.
He gets it from his grandmother.
Who, along with Stephen's parents is the most financially savvy person I know.
Part of me thinks, keeping in mind of course that I am in no way an economist, that the current financial crisis being experienced in Canada and the US is a result of people having credit and spending money they don't have.
And quite frankly, never will have.
Who lends money to people who can't pay it back?
At least on a national and international scale.
Personally, I can't touch that with a ten foot pole.
Today is going to be busy.
Lunch with a friend I haven't seen for a while.
Tikka and the cats to the vet.
No Frankie.
Frankie is a one pet a time kind of vet issue.
He's staying home with Stephen.
Frankie has NEVER been left in the house alone.
Ever.
And I can count on one hand the times he's been separated from Tikka.
He doesn't like it when she's not here.
So while Goblet is going to the vet for her vaccinations, and Stephen wants to be with her, he's decided to stay home with Frankie.
I don't know why he doesn't trust me with her.
He should be more worried about what she'll do to me.
I was more than willing to stay home.
But he seemed to think that since Tikka was going and I think he never asks the right questions, (which isn't true by the way) I should go.
Thankfully, Em is coming with me.
Because while I could handle two cats and a dog, I don't really want to thank you very much.
Tikka is shaking her head again.
To the point where her legs jump
Not a good sign.
Scratching at her ear to the point where it sounds like Polynesian drummers are in our presence.
Rubbing her ear against the couch.
Of course, Stephen is TERRIFIED that we are looking at the return of sarcoptic mange.
I don't think so.
Otherwise, Frankie would have it.
And he isn't showing the signs.
So what she has is yet again, a mystery.
The cats just need their needles.
And to be weighed.
I am quite interested in learning how much Goblet weighs.
It's wrong to be this interested, I know.
But whatever.
I am.
Stephen has an meeting at 5.30.
Em wants to see Transformers 3 at 6.20.
We can't even take her car because Stephen started taking the old plates off, was able to get the front one off, but, the back one won't move.
And he can't seem to get the new front one on.
So it's either drive with one plate, the one that is no longer associated with the car, and risk getting caught. . .
. . .and we would be caught.
Believe me.
Or suck it up until we can get to my cousins to have it repaired.
We'll take option two I think.
And somewhere in there, I will get work done.
I will.
Title Lyric: Credit Card by Silage
No comments:
Post a Comment