And the Paint Goes On . . . and On, and On, and On

At the beginning of June, my husband took my daughter to Germany for 2 weeks to celebrate his dad's birthday, so since there was one less adult in the house AND my biggest helper of the kids was gone, I decided it was time to get serious about my painting project. (Once again, I'm NOT the sane person in this group.)

I felt the need to address the wall texture issues first. Part of my initial goal was to hide the bumps and gouges left by the incompetent "professionals" who rebuilt our house after a house fire (no, no, I'm not bitter at all). Even though I originally thought the paint would help do that, I could now see it wouldn't even come close. So I took my 3 boys and walked through the Home Depot paint department and searched for inspiration. I found it in the form of a can of spray texture.  I had no idea that stuff existed!  I went home excited about taping off a top line and bottom line to mark the outer squares and spraying texture on the wall. And I had a bunch of new paint sticks to replace the ones that had broken in sword duty.

Up to this point I had been planning on just painting one wall at a time.  Suddenly I realized I had better put squares across all 3 walls to make sure that I didn't have a square cut in half in some awkward position, and MIRACULOUSLY!!! I didn't. I fudged a little in one corner, and that is it!  But this meant I was going to have to be moving the great big loft beds back and forth to paint around them.

Since my husband was off in Germany, I felt that a phone consultation with one of my sisters would be wise before plunging ahead.  How glad I am to have done so!  I explained my plan to spray texture on the wall (keeping the square cardboard templates in place so that 1) I wouldn't have to put those little squares back up and 2) I would be able to see clearly where the small squares were within the larger square when it came time to paint).  I also thought (hoped) that the difference in texture would be cool.  And maybe even carpet-like.  By this point I was well into the Delusional Stage that we all suffer from when we are in the middle of a project - convinced that everything will turn out to be AMAZING.  Anyway.  My sister advised me to do some outdoors experimentation with both the texture and the paint to make sure that I would like the result.

One blast from the spray can and I realized that there were serious overspray issues and I needed to put up large sheets of paper or garbage bags to protect the rest of the wall.  And I was going to need to move the beds.

Which leads me back to those conversations that seemed trivial back in December.  You see, as my husband was putting the beds together, I said something like "Maybe I should paint before you put the beds up."  And he, knowing full well that I was at the coloring paper stage, just said "Hmmm."  And proceeded to build the beds.  Then, after he had the beds built and we listened to them creak and bump the walls whenever the boys climbed on them, he said "I think I need to bolt the beds to the wall."  And I said, "Not until I paint the border."  And he said "Hmmm."  Which I now realize meant "The discussion is over.  You haven't convinced me."  But at the time I thought it meant, "Bummer.  I really wanted to do that."

So none of you will be surprised that I spent 2 or 3 minutes, w/ my 10yo helping me, pushing w/ all of our might at those beds and they didn't budge.  I looked up between the wall and the beds and saw some blocks of wood wedged in that space, and decided that they were what was keeping the beds from moving.  I sent the 10yo to the garage for a hammer and set to work to pound those stubborn little blocks out of there.  After pounding away for minutes and watching one little square just kind of pivot oddly in place, I sent the 10yo to the garage for anything he could find that resembled a nail punch.  He came back w/ a chisel, which I intially thought was not helpful at all.  But as I pounded away some more and saw that little block of wood appear to give way I thought "AHA!  Finally!  Some women would have given up by now, but not I! I am about to finish this project!"  (See, Delusional Stage.)  And then, half of the wood suddenly split off and revealed: a piece of metal.  Something that looked suspiciously like a bolt, in fact.  It was time to call my husband in Germany.

Here is something I suspect might be odd: After 20 years of dating and marriage, I am still never quite sure when I am going to get easy-going Stefan and when I am going to get you-did-WHAT-Stefan.  When we chatted on Skype, easy-going Stefan was amused by my efforts to date and asked me if I had forgotten what he had said in December.  I said no, but did he hear what I said after he said what he said???  "Hmmmm" was his reply yet again, which this time I think meant "The discussion is over.  I am admitting no wrong-doing."  Or it could have meant "I'm very confused by this conversation and do not wish to admit it."  Or it might have meant "I'm hungry and here in Germany it's supper-time."  Whichever, he gave me permission to unbolt the beds, spray texture on the walls, and basically do whatever I wanted, and gave me some helpful tips about where to find the tools we would need.

So I started unbolting.  Actually, I set the 10yo to that task while I taped away.  For those of you who think I was working the kid pretty hard, trust me, he wanted to be a part of things.  Looking after his younger brothers for me?  Making the occaisional pb&j?  Not so much.  Except for the last bolt, where I had to help and we got the wrench jammed in between the headboard and bed frame - and it sits there still - it was pretty uneventful.  Easy-going Stefan says he can get the wrench out whenever he wants to.   Or maybe he said "Hmmm."  I'm not sure anymore.

After the difficulties I had leveling the inner squares, I decided one big long level piece of tape was unrealistic for me to get up on the wall, so I decided to attempt alternating the sizes of the squares slightly.  (It's going to look so carpet-like!" my inner voice whispered.)  First I went around the room and used a piece of cardboard as my gauge to put a piece of tape the same amount above and below every other square.  Then I went around and estimated the halfway point between each set of squares, and put a piece of tape closer to the inner square template, above and below.  This was trickier, because I had to make sure it went exactly from one mid-point to the other, and that the top line and bottom line were equal.  Which of course they would be if they both went from the actual mid-point to the other actual mid-point, but I was estimating, so it was chancey.  Remember, I had just eyeballed my initial placement of the inner squares, so each of my inner/outer squares were slightly different sizes anyway.  But I had to make sure that they alternated between noticeably bigger and noticeably smaller.  My 10yo helped me tape paper above and below all of this marvelous taping, and I was ready to spray.

Deep breath.  The undo-able part.  I sprayed wall texture.   The fumes were horrible; I liked the look.  At this point, I started letting the boys sleep out on the living room floor and there was more than one night they fell asleep out there before I even realized it was 11pm and told them to go to bed.  I also invented a meal I was proud to call Yellow - corn on the cob and scrambled eggs - because naming it somehow made it more health-conscious, caring mom and less desperate, doesn't have time to cook properly mom - and served it to the boys something like 4 times in 2 weeks.  Clean laundry mingled with dirty laundry all over the house, and I made the kids wear the same clothes for at least 3 days in a row.  Good times.

We peeled off the overspray barriers.  I didn't hate it.  I was still deep in the Delusional Stage.  (It's going to look AMAZING!  And so carpet-like!)  And it is at this point in the project that I looked at my 5 paint cans and said to myself "I will just do a 5 block repeating pattern."  (I have no idea why I even tried to plan this project in the first place.)  I randomly grabbed the dark green color, placed strips of tape vertically from where the outer squares changed sizes, and went around the room, painting every 5th square green.  I liked it.  Weirdly enough, I started at one end w/ dark green and the other end came up: Green!  Amazing!  I didn't want to paint the adjacent color (beige or dark brown) while the green paint was drying, so I did cream next.  I really, REALLY liked it. 

Then I hit a small snag.  When I put strips of tape over the green paint so that I could paint beige next to it, the tape pulled off some of the green color when I removed it.  So I decided that I would have to do the rest of the colors with no side tape.  Just trusting my top-notch painting skills to go along next to the neighboring color without going over it.  I do NOT have top-notch painting skills, people.  But for beige, dark brown and dark blue, I was able (for the most part) to do this.  I also mentally added the step of going back and doing touch-up painting to my growing list of things this project required.

my facebook poll picture - keep the
inside color the same or not?

I peeled off all of the tape, moved the boys back into their bedroom, welcomed my husband and daughter back from Germany, and faced a decision: painting the inner square a different color (I mean, that was the only part of my original plan left, why stick to that?) or paint it all in with the color of the outside square.  I posted a picture on facebook and asked everybody to weigh in.  With the encouragement I received, I went ahead with my original plan.  I spent 2 days trying to figure out the inner color pattern (this looked like me just pacing in the boys' room and muttering to myself), and eventually came up with a repeat of 10 inner blocks.  The outer green squares, for example, alternately have cream and light green insides.  The dark brown alternates between dark blue and light green.  Cream squares contain either dark green or dark blue.  Etc.  I decided I wasn't fond enough of the beige color to use it further, and I did decide to bring in light green and light blue - although I ended up using slightly different shades than the ones already in the room.

Two weeks of me squatting in the boys room with a child's paintbrush in hand, going around and around the room with a different paint color at my feet.  Two weeks of sliding those amazing yet very heavy loft beds back and forth along the wall.  Two weeks of thinking very deep thoughts like "Straight lines, straight lines, straight lines, oops, you'll have to go back over that spot.  Hmmm, that

color's going to need three coats. Straight lines, straight lines . . ." Yes, I decided to do the rest of the project free hand. And even though I ended up having to tape that little kids' paintbrush together w/ electrical tape to finish the job (note to self: buy the kids good quality art supplies in the future) I am so happy to report: IT'S FINISHED!!!  And yes, it looks very carpet-like.  :)

~Stephanie

I debated about getting the boys' beds made up perfectly for this picture, but ultimately decided we keep it real here on
moms-retreat, so why go all Better Homes and Garden now. :)

When You Give a Mom a Paintbrush

This particular painting tale starts about 5-1/2 years ago, when I first walked through what is now our home and fell in love with it.  At the time I had a 7year old daughter, and 2yo and 5yo boys, and we had outgrown our first house.  I have some pretty strong ideas about helping children learn to get along with other people better by making them share a bedroom, so I planned to put all three kids in the same bedroom from the beginning.  We painted the room blue on the top and green on the bottom, and I had a wonderful idea about painting white circles along a border right where the two colors met that I stole from a Pottery Barn catalogue, but the house turned into a big-time project house (in a bad way that we hadn't expected) and my husband made the brilliant decision to buy a wallpaper border w/ big colorful trains and planes and tractors.  I slapped it up, and I have to say, I loved the result, in spite of the big-time little boy look:

The only photo we have of the room back then -
and it looks like my daughter was playing with my camera.

We had another baby, a boy, and that's when I could see my daughter's days in that bedroom were numbered, no matter how selfish it was going to make her.  :)  But I wasn't going to worry about that yet.  So she stayed in the green and blue airplane room.

Then, about a year and a half later, we had a major house fire.  And it took a year and a half to rebuild.  We finally moved back into a much safer house in November 2010, with a lot of our major projects taken care of, but the new bedroom paint job was a mess.  Oh, there was blue and green.  But there was also a line of caulk across two walls (not even adjacent ones) where the contractors had mistakenly installed a chair rail and then taken it down.   There was unsanded joint compound spots just painted over, so there were dull spots in the paint finish randomly around the bedroom.  The paint wasn't even rolled on very well.  But I had bigger problems than paint (ummm, feeding and educating 4 kids?), so, for ANOTHER year and a half, I only dreamed about touching up the paint and painting a border around the middle of the room that would match the area rug I bought:

As you can see in this picture (besides the fact
that my youngest is definitely a character),
the boys' beds were still on the floor at this point - 
 we hadn't even made time to get them bed frames
because we were talking about getting
or building loft beds. 

This past December, we had my entire family (4 siblings and spouses, LOTS of nephews, and my dad and his wife) coming, so I thought I had better get on the ball.  I also reminded my husband that it would be nice if the kids were no longer sleeping on the floor and would he please get to work and build the boys those loft beds we had been talking about since we moved back in.  (I didn't want to be all alone on the ball.)  Then I proceeded to start to measure the three walls the border would go on, and started coloring little squares within squares on paper so that I could plan out the colors ahead of time.  You see, I knew that a good project starts with good planning.

By Christmas, my husband had completed the loft beds.  They were (and are) AMAZING.

Meanwhile, I still had lots of papers with colorful squares all over the house.  Sigh.

Finally, in desperation, I decided that I was just going to go w/ 5 colors that approximately matched the rug: dark brown, beige, cream, dark blue and dark green.  I bought them.  I had a vague thought that if I needed light green and light blue (which are in the carpet), I could use the paint we have that is leftover from the "professional" painters.  And that's all that happened in December.  Well, there were actually two important conversations that occurred during this month, but since I didn't realize they were important until June, I will include them in my report later.  hah.

In January, I decided to start by painting the outside squares.  Although I had made many measurements and done many calculations, trying to figure out how big to make the sqaures, in the end I just decided to make them about the same size as the carpet squares.  I think I had some calculations to justify this decision (?), but then again, I had been drawing colored squares on graph paper for a month.  I probably could have justified turning my 4yo loose in the room at that point. 

I cut squares out of heavy cardstock that were about the size of the inner carpet squares, and set about trying to space them evenly across the wall.  I knew my squares weren't exactly perfect squares, or even exactly all the same, but I thought "That's OK.  It will look more carpet-like that way."  Then I went back and tried to make sure they were level.  Then I had to go back and re-space them.  And then I went back w/ the level, and . . . well, you get the picture.  I'm not sure where my ideas about good planning went to.  But pretty soon my duties as homeschooling mom were calling to me and that was it for January.

By February, the boys were using all of my paint stirring sticks as swords, in spite of repeated threats and lots of yelling.  On my part, that is.  Nobody had touched the squares I had sticky-tacked to the wall, but the thread I had put up to use as my level marker kept getting tangled in people's play and more of it was on the floor each time I looked.

In May I pulled all of that stupid thread off the stupid wall (after I narrowly avoided the long arm of the law, that is).  I had no idea where those stupid square drawings were and just prayed they had been thrown out and weren't part of the giant stupid pile of paperwork that now kept me from using my computer at my desk.  The stupid paint sticks had all been broken and trashed.  I knew it was time to get serious and show my kids that you don't start something and not finish it.  (Why do we adults come up w/ all these stupid great sayings, anyway?  Don't we know the kids are going to use it against us the first chance they get?) 

But of course things got a little crazier before they got better . . .

(to be continued)

~Stephanie

The Mess

The Mess

This week my twelve year-old daughter, who never ceases to amaze me, donated her hair again to Locks of Love.  Twelve inches, three ponytails, and this was for the third time.  I am super proud of her and can honestly say that this is all her own doing.  She has a heart that wants to serve others, and this is a tangible way she can do so.  


My daughter did not do this, because my husband and I made her do it or guilted her into it.  She did not do it as a result of my husband and I having found the secrets to success in parenting. She does not even do it just to get attention from it. It is not because she is homeschooled that she decides to do these kinds of things.  She loves God, and it is that simple. 


So, you might wonder what kind of parents are behind such an amazing young person.  I have to tell you that it is not pretty.  Though my husband and I love God and attempt to lead lives to please Him, we are far from perfect.  We are a mess.


We do not rise diligently at the crack of dawn before our children are awake to pray for hours and read the Bible before the sun comes up.  In an ideal world we'd like to, but we are a bit unconventional.  Our prayer time and devotional time happens, but it happens at better times for us.   


Though we homeschool and are pleased with how this works for our family, our children have their complaints about school.  There are tears.  Oh, and they cry, too, sometimes. ;) Our days are not completely full of the joys of learning like in all of the homeschool manuals, self-help books, and curriculum.  Our children are smart, but none of them are equivalent to Einstein in the way they function.  Our children don't all start playing beautiful instruments by the age of 3 just to start a travelling family symphony by the age of 6.  They do not always have a joyful attitude, and they have issues controlling their anger and frustration at times.  


We do not buy all of our food organic, and our children do like sweets and plenty of bad-for-you salty snacks.  There is evidence of this on our kitchen floor more times than I'd like to admit. 


We are not nearly as consistent as we'd like to be.  Their schedules are sometimes a wreck.  Our children sometimes stay up way past their bedtime.  They misbehave and have tantrums.  They pick up our bad habits.  They do weird things that don't make any sense to us, and sometimes we find humor in it while sometimes we don't.  


If you walk into our house at any given moment, especially but certainly not limited to the school year, it will be a disaster area.  There will be dust covered stuff, random food lying on the countertops, unfinished sippy cups, toys scattered on the floors, books and curriculum covering the dining room table, and dog hair on the floors.  Oh, and speaking of the dog, if he could talk... well, let's just be glad he can't.  These kinds of conditions can not be pleasant for him.  It's a good thing he loves us.


We have the tendency to multi-task more than we should, and we are not proud of it.  To generalize all of the details (so as not to bore you,) between working, schooling, cleaning, running kids to their activities, church, and volunteering our lives are full.  


Today, I was reading in a book called "Think Orange" by Reggie Joiner:

"Noah had a drinking problem.  Abraham offered his wife to another man. Rebekah schemed with her son to deceive her husband, Isaac.  Jacob's sons sold their brother into slavery.  David had an affair, and his son started a rebellion.  Eli lost total control of how his boys acted in church...Has it ever occurred to you that maybe God filled the pages of Scripture with bad parenting examples to encourage us?  I know God desires for me to be a responsible Christian parent, but my humanness sometimes gets in the way.  When I read the variety of Christian books about parenting, they often make me feel overwhelmed and guilty.  If I consider my own personality quirks, I am not sure I have it in me to be an A+ parent.  When I read the Bible, though, I am actually encouraged, and I am definitely aware that God has a way of doing something incredible in spite of my faults."  

This was encouraging to me.  My expectations of myself are much higher than I can ever possibly live up to while on this earth.  Actually Sue's Always, Never post got me thinking about this, because I can SO relate to Always, Never.  It's nice to be reminded now and then that those who came before me in my faith were pretty flawed, and yet they are in many ways considered heroes of my faith.  It helps me to lighten up and relax.  And, even though my husband and I are more flawed than we sometimes would even like to say out loud, we are a work in progress.  As we press on in this season called "parenting," we hope that we can improve some things about ourselves along the way to be better parents.  It gives us hope, though, that God is not finished with us, and that despite our inadequacies He reminds us through our children that He is working in them, too.  


~Michelle

Always Never...

That is my mood this week. My house is always NEVER clean. My kids are always NEVER in the mood to learn, be kind, or be clean. I realize none of this is true (about the kids, not the house - THAT is true.), but it feels true sometimes. For instance, i swept the floor, which already needs to be swept again, and in the pile?

-a naked barbie
-5 popsicle wrappers
-chewed gum
-disturbing amounts of hair
-cheerios
-legos
-corn

This happens every. day. We own a trash can, many of them. But things are thrown on the floor. Usually causing me to become overwhelmed with emotions and be holding back very angry, hurt, and frustrated tears, and start mentally saying things i can't say out loud. I know, i know, i shouldn't think those things either, but it happens. Messiness causes me to feel more crazy than normal. And since our house is almost always in some state of extreme mess, i guess i'm not sure what it's like to feel normal. If you open closets, you are greeted by an avalanche - depending on what closet, you get different results. Most of the time, you can't see the floors in the kids bedrooms. There are splatters of i don't know what on every surface. Baseball gear everywhere. 4 bikes and a jog stroller IN. MY. LIVINGROOM. I just want a clean house. Apparently, no one else feels the same.

Also on the always never list? Feeling like i know what i am doing with homeschooling. This is all we have ever done. I should have it in the bag. And some days, i feel pretty good. THEN...you get around those Moms. The ones who are teaching their 1yr old the art of hieroglyphics on real papyrus sent from Cairo, their 3yr old how to speak fluent Hebrew while they recreate the temple scene where Jesus knocked over the store tables in clay (to be later put in the fire kiln they MADE, glazed and made into a statue..*sigh*), the 6 year old does advanced calculus, plays the harp, and gives lectures at the art museum, and the 8 yr old has a college degree and is preparing to go on to medical school, and just to put more salt in the wound - they are all happy. They love to learn. They want to learn. And that Moms house is clean. I'm not even kidding when i say i sometimes drive around longer after these "play dates" because i don't want to go home to my messy house. I don't know how they do it. I make myself feel better saying, "they don't have 5 kids...they don't have a toddler"...but usually, they do. And they make it work. Gloriously.

Oh, and i have also been known to go on Facebook or Amazon on my phone when a group of wonder-Moms start talking curriculum. Because i always never know what they are even talking about.

Wonder-Mom, "Did you try the new level of science busters, phase 6, with the block of learning charts, number settings, pyramid set-up, and extra blaaa blaaa blaaa"
Me, *thinking*, "well hello, Amazon...yes, i do need k-cups and a yellow scarf".

And then we get home from these play dates, i open the door, get smacked in the face with an aroma i can't figure out (never a good one), i get coffee, take 3 ibuprofen....and maybe i watch Housewives of New Jersey, and wish i had a ridiculous tan, ridiculous nails, and fun clothes. Because you know what else? I always never look nice - for more than about 5 minutes. I sweat. I have a toddler. I spill my coffee. I get oatmeal wiped on me while said toddler smiles.

I don't even have a point with writing this today...i just wonder if anyone else feels like this. Where you are always hoping and waiting for the "perfect" to start, but in reality, you need to accept the giant, sticky, sweaty, mess that your life is. And...ugh...here it comes... ENJOY it. Easier said than done. But i'm trying.
~Sue