Plodding Right Along

I keep telling myself--and truly intending--to blog every day or two, but I just don't seem to be capable of it anymore. It's been nearly a week again. Sad.

I last blogged on Friday night. I tried to write a happy blog because I desperately needed it. Ha! Last week was a long, long week for me. I cried all... week... long. Sure, there were lots of things going on that I was really troubled about (don't you just hate that phrase--it sounds so dismal and pitiful!) and plenty of things to take to the Lord in prayer, but I usually handle things with a little more emotional stability and a whole lot less tears than I did last week! It was horrible. Some jerk told me yesterday (and no, it wasn't James--ha!) that I seem to be getting more emotional. I would love to tell him he's wrong. That can't possibly be the case. I LIKE being even and steady and level emotionally. Over-emotional people wear me out. They're simply exhausting and you always feel like telling them to CHILL OUT, calm down, stop over-reacting, get a grip, RELAX... What kind of a creep would say something like that to me anyway?! He'll be hearing a few things from me about it, rest assured! Just as soon as I dry it up. Now, where are my Kleenexes??? ;-)

Yeah, it was a long week, working up to it's climax on Sunday. Sunday was a rough, rough day for me. I finally had a bit of a breakdown and cried to James for a little while that afternoon (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know--EMOTIONAL! Where is the jerk who said that anyway...) and before too long I was feeling much, much better. ~whew~ THAT'S a relief. I've been much more normal since then and I'm so glad. :-)

We did indeed spray all of the upstairs ceilings with ceiling paint AND got all of the doors and trim sprayed with Bleached Linen. It felt sooooooooooooo good to get it done! Now we're ready to start going room by room and make things beautiful up there. :-) The only things that didn't get sprayed were the two bathrooms. We'll paint everything in those rooms the old fashioned way.

As for Mother's Day, I have a very thoughtful family. James had brought roses and a card and the kids all picked out some of my favorite snacks and a card. It was all very sweet. I think I cried. Of course I did. Now that I'm a complete emotional wreck in my old age. (Jerk...)

We struggled to get a good picture (!), so this is what we ended up with.
I also wanted to get a picture of Katie in her Easter dress since the only pictures I posted of her wearing it on Easter were at Charlie's funeral. :-/ You can actually see the colors a little better in the picture above though. I love it. It makes me want to cry. (Hahahahahaha! Just kidding!)

Sunday night on our way home from church James told me that he was thinking of making a quick trip to Pennsylvania, "maybe leave on Monday..." I thought he meant NEXT Monday, but he was speaking of the Monday that was about 2 hours away at the time! He used to be so... sheduled. Now he just up and makes BIG decisions on a whim. Weird. Anyway, we decided it would be best if he took the boys with him and I kept Katie with me--so we're having an impromptu girls week! Not that we're able to do much celebrating. There's too much work to be done around here!

I spent most of the day on Monday just trying to get the guys gone--doing laundry and getting them all packed up. They finally left sometime mid-afternoon. Katie and I gathered all of the books that were nearly due and made a trip to the library, then to do some grocery shopping. By the time we made it home it was nearly 6:00. We had dinner, then set up the ironing board and a make-shift ironing board (desk + cardboard + towel) in James' office and spent the evening working through the baskets of clothes while watching a couple of old Jimmy Stewart movies we'd picked up. They were both true stories and very interesting. The first was about Monty Stratton, a nobody who became a big time pitcher then was in an accident and had to learn to cope with his new handicap. It's really a very good movie, much better than it sounds by my description. Ha! The other was The Spirit of St. Louis, the story of Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic, of course. I'd never seen it before and I really, really enjoyed it. It was fascinating.

Yesterday morning we got up and headed for Lowes to pick up some paint: red, white, and black. :-) The red has me scared to death. I LOVE red. But I HATE picking a red paint! It has the potential to be completely catastrophic. I know from experience. I'm just hoping that the end result will be a color that will go well with Katie's Coca-Cola room instead of a Barbi doll room. Ha!

We got home and got straight to work. Katie helped out and primed the ceiling and walls in the boys' bathroom, which was GREAT. :-) At the end of the day, both bathrooms had been primed and I had faux painted the three walls in the guest room and three in the boys' bathroom--each of those rooms will have an accent color on the remaining walls. It felt like a pretty good accomplishment for having started much later than I'd hoped!

Madison came to spend the night with Katie last night, so I played a few games with them before sitting down to proof the Evening Light. Madison had brought Life with her. I used to love that game when I was a kid and I hadn't played it in years. It was a different version than I had, but still fun. Of course, when you play with young girls you spend half of the game giving names to everybody's husband and children. Ha! It was fun. I finally stopped and tried to proof read at about 11:00, but my brain was sooooo not in gear! At 1:00 I still had three pages left (!!!) and told the girls I was going to go finish reading and go to bed. I'd been listening to their games and reading instructions and helping them off and on the whole time. Who knows how many mistakes the paper will have next month due to my mental weariness and game distractions! And emotional instability, no doubt. Jerk. ;-)

I had to DRAG myself out of bed this morning, even though I slept in. My body was all achy from the painting yesterday (pitiful) and I didn't feel like doing anything today! I got the corrections to Mom, then headed upstairs to do some more painting. I didn't get to do anything fun up there today. I got out the dark primer and primed the walls in the guest room, Katie's room, and the boys' bathroom--all of the walls up there that will be receiving dark, bold, dangerous colors. :-) I thought of Brother Ridlespurge when I typed that sentence. He's such a color sissy. HA! Anyway, It was about 4:00 when I finished priming the last wall and I didn't want to get into another color before church, so I called it quits. Katie and Madison were playing Life again when I came down. I'm sorry I missed it. :-) I think I'll lay down for a few minutes before we have to get ready for church. I'd love to get an early start upstairs tomorrow. It's getting better up there all the time. It's soooooo wonderful to get past the ~BLEAGH~ stage when everything is all torn up and filthy and finally make it to the happy stage when the walls start to show color and personality--and they are fresh and clean. ~sigh~ It makes me so happy!!!!

I think it makes me want to cry.

(JERK!)

;-)