Best Laid Plans

The plan was to work all day today in the bedroom, get the walls ready to paint. For me to paint tomorrow while Gordon was at work and then for all of us to go downstate on Wednesday. We have worked all day today, but I got a call for a temp job starting on Wednesday in Walled Lake, so I will be taking care of things here and packing to go down tomorrow night so I can go to the temp agency early Wednesday morning and pick up the info for the job and start working again.

Bunny Food

Dinner at Robin's was great she had way too much food, dressings, and salads, and vegetables, and macaroni things, and pies, all in addition to the required Easter fixin's. Quite a few people too I counted 19. Megan went over early and hid eggs for the kids to find. Chris called while we were there and I got to talk to him for a while something I haven't done in over a year. He's doing well, he has been transferred to a different prison, my understanding is that it is one step closer (although no where near) camp cupcake. But he has better opportunities there (school, work) to actually use this time to his advantage. He has even been thwarted already by trying to enrol in available programs that are not for his criminal type. He wanted to enrol in a domestic violence prevention program but since that is not what he is in for he doesn't qualify. Gordon scraped walls for a couple of hours in the morning while I slept in but other than that we took the day off. I'm kind of getting used to sleeping on a matteress in the living room. There are more pictures up on the yahoo site.

Easter Chair

The Easter Bunny came and left a chair with candy and plush. Fortunately, he did not leave any additional snow since we still have plenty left from his previous visit. We are stripping all of the new paint off the walls, the spots left from pulling the tape off were just too much. I picked up a gallon of rich blue, so the good news is I will not have green walls in my bedroom. Gordon seems to be fixtated on green for the bedroom walls and we have always ended up painting them green. I had almost resigned myself to having green forever since whenever I have not had Gordon I was also not willing to paint. But we went with a blue and I picked up some green and blue striped material for the closet doors. I have learned that taking paint off takes twice as long as putting it on, and the more paint there is the easier it comes off. We are going to Robin's for dinner, Megan is over there now hiding eggs. I will hopefully get some pictures and will post more later.

On To Plan B

Not quite sure what Plan B is yet, but the paint came with the tape in 95% of the place and one I don't have enough of the green to touch it up, and 2 it would look even worse than I could stand. So maybe a trip to Home Depot to see what they have in the OOPS paint today. Gordon has started to scrape the green that is peeling and there is no way to get it without taking alot of the blue with it. The stripes were cool while they lasted. I hope to keep the blue ceiling and I have navy blue curtains already made.

And Then There Was Color

I got most of the color on the stripes before Gordon got home at midnight and then he helped me finish them up. This morning we have to pull the tape off and hope that the paint doesn't come with it. It doesn't on Trading Spaces, but somehow I don't think I'm on Trading Spaces unless it's the Twilight Zone version. I figure if I give you guys blow by blow detail when I don't post again for a month you will be relieved.

Prime Stripes

The kids are gone and three coats of primer are on the stripes. I should be starting the blue on the stripes and yet here I am in front of the computer. It probably took three coats because I didn't feel like going to a real store and so I went to the dollar store, after the Megan did the first coat it looked like the primer had been sponged on. I assumed it was just the way Megan did it, but when I started the second coat we stopped and went to K-Mart to get some real rollers. I then did the second and third coat and am so sore. The kids are back in the morning, so maybe I'll just wait for more help.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Jail

Okay, I understand Dad’s reasoning why to start in the middle, and I almost understand how to do it. Somehow I don’t think we will get to floor for a couple of months. That gives Dad plenty of time to get here. The “assuming the wall is straight” hit right between the eyes as we started taping off the stripes. 16 Inches from the top corner does not equal 16 inches from the bottom corner. Fortunately we are not fussy people and I will be pretty damn happy just to get my bed back in the room. Gordon leaves for work in a few minutes, leaving me, Megan, Bryan, and Sabrina to color in the stripes. First though is a trip to the store to get more rollers.

In to Out or Out to In

We just picked up some floor tile at the dollar store. Someone once told me you are supposed to start in the center of the room and work your way out. This would mean pieces around all of the edges. Somehow that does not make sense to me, but I also am fully aware that a lot of this does not make sense to me. Can anyone help?

And So It Goes On

So Monday we pulled off wallpaper; Tuesday we pulled up flooring, pulled more wallpaper and plastered holes; Wednesday I sanded walls while Gordon was at work and then we finally got to paint when he got home. Gordon painted the ceiling and I primered most of the walls, Gordon was finished with the ceiling before I was done so he helped me with the upper trim as I don’t work too well above my head. Today we got two coats of the green base color on the walls and once that dries we are going to start taping off our stripes, and I got all of the radiators scrubbed down. And if I am not always poilite, I am helpful so taking a break to walk one of my favorite sisters through Mail Merge was certainly appreciated, anyone else needs help please call. The original plan had the room done on Tuesday before Gordon had to go back to work. He works tomorrow afternoon and then all day on Saturday so hopefully we can get a lot done today and leave only easy stuff for me to do while he is at work. Especially since spring break started at noon today and I may have given the impression that the boys were helpful so I will have lots of help with whatever I have left to do.

PS Dad I tried to reply to your second attempt at Women (to say the first attempt came through fine it was just that it started done a little ways so it appeared to be an empty email) but I received a MailerDaemon that I had been refused. Nothing personal I’m sure.

PSS Erika if you typpe the blog in Word including the picture stuff and then copy and paste into blogger it doesn't recognize your "" for the alignment.

Easy Smeasy

Okay so we know there is tile we can live with under the carpet, so we are going to just pull the carpet up. However a few of the trick tiles come up with the carpet showing a decent wood floor underneath. One of us –it really doesn’t matter who – said let’s just pull the tile up too. Those tiles that did not come up with the carpet, there was a reason for that, but all of the tiles are up. Now we have to figure out what we are going to do for a floor. I am amazingly more help then even I thought I would be. However I am nothing if not polite, so I must take a break when someone calls (Thanks Mel and Dad!)

It was supposed to be easier this time

That's what Gordon kept saying, since we didn't have any magic marker on the walls to cover, I didn't think he was considering the stripes but who was I to burst his bubble (yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking!) But then he asked a really stupid question "How do we get this wallpaper that is starting to come down to stay up?" This question is not covered on Trading Spaces, they don't have walls that are paint covered wallpaper. So I say, "just rip down the wallpaper" sounded innocent enough. So we ended up with some real quality family time, nicked hands, and I think I may lose a fingernail (at least I hope so since it hurts like the dickens,) a floor covered in pieces of wallpaper and more wallpaper and paint and more wallpaper. The flower design seen in the picture is the very bottom layer to get that off you have to dig into the plaster board, on top of that was a very cleverly disguised layer of beige paint that looked amazingly like plasterboard until it peeled in one place, on top of that were varying layers and designs of wallpaper depending on where you were in the room and then of course the final layer of green paint that we had put there when we moved in. Today we will pull up the carpet with all the wall stuff and hopefully begin painting. On While You Were Out the sewing lady gets to sit in a room with her sewing machine, I don't have a machine but would be perfectly content to take my needle and thread and move to another room while the demo/paint team comes in.

Easter Snow

The Easter Bunny came to West Branch bringing with him a good dumping of the cold, wet (and much wetter than normal) stuff. Saturday had all the makings of a nice spring day when we walked into K-Mart. We came out unable to see into the parking lot for the sheet of white that had assaulted us. By the time we made it to the car we were soaked. Every snowflake had to have contained a ¼ cup of water. We scraped off the car and skidded across the parking lot to Glen’s. Finding what items we could and trying to get back home as soon as possible, Megan took the boys out and got them in the car as Gordon and I were getting rain checks for sale items.
Good Megan had waited outside the car to help load the groceries and had attempted to keep the car clean of snow, her attempts were futile and we came out to a snow Megan. Covered in the white stuff with glowing red cheeks from the cold. Somehow I managed to completely forget about the snow for when dinner time came around I suggested Hot n Ready pizzas. Realizing too late that once Pizza has been spoken out loud, it is too late to go to grilled cheese sandwiches I ventured back into the snow literally sliding my way back to Glen’s parking lot and picking up two Hot n Ready pizzas. I’m not sure if the problem was because the snow was so wet, or if the county is out of salt this late in a winter season with a lot of snow fall, but the roads had not improved.

While we shopping Steph had called and told her story of flying stand by, asking if she could get a flight into Flint if I could pick her up. I’m not sure she has a real grip on Michigan geography and realizes that Flint is much closer to Detroit than it is to West Branch but her woe included an out of town parent and a car held hostage in an employee parking lot . (One sure sign of being the next generation is you stopped listening to at least every other word in tales of woe from the generation(s) below you.) So of course I said, sure just let me know what you need when you know. After seeing the wall of white, and driving on the roads I was weighing the importance of a hamster’s haircut with the stress of a white knuckle 150 mile drive. Luckily for me, and not so luckily for the hamsters, she called later to let me know that she was unable to get a flight until Monday and would be flying into DTW where her car was being held hostage.

The temp job ended on Friday, so I am officially back to unemployed. The company I was working with hired someone else to fill the position and though I could go into all of my rationalizations of why they chose to do this, nobody really wants to read that long of a blog.

I finally got down on the floor last night and cut out two of the six curtains for my bedroom, and hopefully we will be able to paint it next week. I bought one of those laser straight line things, and it was extremely helpful in cutting out the material. I have had the material for a while, but the task of spreading it out and measuring and cutting and ironing was daunting, so I focused on all of the easy stuff for Megan’s room, and then made a few blankets out of remnants that needed to measuring, cutting, or ironing. But with the laser line I spread the material out, ironed in my bottom hem, measured down 66 inches lined the light up with the 66 line on the tape measure and Megan cut along the line. I could then just iron in my top hem. Hopefully I will get the other four cut tonight and then all I have to do is stitch them and figure out what I want to do with the extra material. We bought the laser light because we are seriously considering doing stripes in the bedroom. Can too much trading spaces be a bad thing?

If you were waiting for me to post

The interview in Standish was a wash, great job – lots of challenges, casual office (mud and smoking at each desk), no pay and absolutely no benefits. I had another interview in Houghton Lake this Friday, job looks interesting, minimal pay, minimal benefits. Meanwhile I am still at the temp job, I understand what I am doing, and what the company in general is doing but I just can’t get how they make any money at it. They really like me, and we are starting to talk permanent. I hate what I am doing, straight data entry, but if the compensation is okay and there is room to grow then it’s a great possibility.

Things are going along fine at home. Megan is student of the week this week. It’s about time, every month I get a newsletter listing the students of the week, I told her she was grounded if she didn’t put forth the effort soon, but she came through. Her room is still clean, I am actually very amazed. Even her closet. She is at the movies with Robin and the boys right now seeing Robots, last week they went to see The Pacifier.

Having lost everything on my computer I lost my list of books that I have read, and have not had to ambition to start it again. I haven’t read anything really interesting this year except Conviction by Richard North Patterson. I went to the library today to refill and they were closed due to furnace problems. Strangely enough I am not panicking, I’m sure I’ll find something to read.

Gordon is working every hour he can get, and is getting in the groove of me being gone all week again. I came home to a very shiny house, with the furniture in places it had never been before. Somehow, when I was in charge of that the furniture knew it’s place and stayed there.

The big news I guess, is Heather is pregnant. I believe she is planning on (or may have already) marrying this new boyfriend Don. She is ecstatic about the baby, and I figure if they had waited till I thought it was a good time to have a baby, I wouldn’t have Beenie, Bryan, or Sean. As long as all I have to do is love ‘em we’re okay.

I don’t go on line at work, and Mommy’s computer doesn’t always like me so I’ll post again when I can, or if anything really exciting happens. But don’t let that stop the rest of you.