You Win Some, You Lose Some

Today I lost.

I hate it when people get on the Internet and throw out little blips about how horrible their day is. I'd rather do an all-out rant. Naw, not really. It hasn't been a bad day. It just felt like it. Ha! Or perhaps "worthless" would be a better description than "bad."

James mentioned just staying home today instead of going to work on the Monstrosity. I said I figured we really ought to go work while we can since we'll be gone to Youth Retreat this weekend and I'll be at Tennessee Ladies' Retreat next weekend. The house isn't going to get ready for us to move in all by itself, you know. It needs TONS of work and we really ought to take every opportunity we have to get things accomplished there. ~sigh~ It all sounded good in my head and even when it came out of my mouth, I thought.

James said yeah, I was probably right. He didn't feel like going to town (none of us really felt like it...), but we loaded up and went anyway. I can't remember what James worked on, but my one and only goal was to finish getting all of the wallpaper out of the house. Except the peacocks. We all know they'll be with me forever. Aside from them, the only remaining paper was in the chapel/den/library room (because somebody who needs to be shot put a world globe border on top of beautiful tongue and groove wood) and then the entire guest room.

The border in the library room came down okay, though I'll have some residue to remove at some point.

Then it was time for the bedroom. It was another one of those "~sigh~" experiences. Only two layers of wallpaper that I'm sure of, as well as two layers of paint thrown into the mix. The maddening thing is that there was a really thick, heavy wallpaper at some point, then somebody stripped pieces of it, but left other huge chunks on the wall... and then papered over all of it! Then painted it bright pink. Where's my gun... Along with the usual seams in the wallpaper, there are LUMPS all over the walls from the pieces of the first wallpaper that is here and there. I finally discovered that it was faster to remove most of the upper layers without the steamer, then steam the last layer. It tears up the sheetrock a little bit in places, but nothing like what was happening under the peacock stuff. I think these walls will still be usable, but it's taking for...ev...er to get them stripped. It occurred to me that there's a possibility that we might cover the lower section of that bedroom with beadboard or some such thing--and it would be insane to spend all that time stripping paper if I don't need to. (If I can live with peacocks under my new walls, why couldn't I live with pink paper on yellow paint on chunks of black and yellow butterfly paper under that?)

I talked to James and we decided that maybe we should stop that project and take some time to do some pondering and shopping and pricing and--mostly--searching for inspiration. I have vague ideas of what I'd like to do in this house, but very few things that I feel solid about. I'm used to living in a place for several months and encourtering those "Aha!" moments when it suddenly occurs to you that THAT'S what you need to do in that room. This go-round we're needing to just DO everything and it's a simple fact that you can't rush inspiration. And it hasn't hit yet. I've seen little glimmers of something akin to it, but they've been fleeting most of the time.

Anyway, we loaded up and went to a big... store. Can't think of how to describe it. We were looking for inspiration. Instead I found more discouragement. We were looking at things that would be nice to decorate a finished house with. I don't have one of those. It was just adding insult to injury. Like pouring lemon juice into an already acutely painful paper cut. (Don't you just love it when I get all dramatic like that??? HA!)

We left there and went to Home Depot in search of inspiration. We walked out with a mailbox. It wasn't very inspiring. I wanted to price beadboard and different types of wood siding. I really don't like the prices. They're okay for a sheet or two, but we bought a BIG house. Got to limit that kind of stuff. Wallpaper is crazy expensive too, which is really why I wanted to price some of the other options. I hate having just paint. I like having mostly paint (it's much cheaper than anything else--and other people don't feel like shooting you later--unless of course you're painting on top of wallpaper), but I like something a unique and different here and there. Something with some pizazz, you know? But pizazz appears to be pricey. I like pizazz. I don't like pricye. James really doesn't like pricey.

A mailbox. No pizazz. No great "I've got it!" revelations. Just some expensive wood and trim and whatnot. Home Depot was another bomb.

Then we went to Big Lots so James could pick up a couple of rakes. They didn't have any.

My daughter's shoes are too small and hurting her feet. She also suddenly has very few sweaters or long sleeved shirts to wear in the cooler weather.

I didn't think about any of that until we'd passed both thrift stores.

The stores that we did go into I was embarrassed to go into because I looked so rough. Still had my work skirt on--that was covered in wallpaper schmazz. I had changed from my sweatshirt that was also covered with schmazz into James' extra fleece thinking I wouldn't look quite so tacky, but I think I was wrong. I had to roll the sleeves twice to keep my fingers in view and the shirt itself reached almost to my knees making me feel like I was wearing a fuzzy nightgown and should NOT be seen in public.

My sunglasses are broken.

I made a soup on Saturday for us to eat today. I did well and remembered to take it to the Monstrosity. Lunchtime came and we discovered that I forgot to plug the crock-pot in and the soup was cold, so we ended up with Sonic for lunch.

~sigh~

~SIGH~

~BIG SIGH~

I'm not sure I did anything right or worthwhile at all today.

But I'm saved. Jesus loves me. I have a husband who loves me, loves my children, and loves the Lord and His Church. I have the three best kids in the world. They desire to be good and do right, and they keep me laughing. I've got a puppy to cuddle with when I feel stressed. Clothes to wear, food to eat, good health, the best friends and family in the world... And a brand new day awaiting me tomorrow. It's going to start by spending some time with God... and then saying, "James, you were SO RIGHT yesterday--we should have stayed home. Let's do that today instead, okay???" ;-)