security

Okay, now this is really sad, trust me you'll see where I'm going, in my convoluted way, with this. The kids are at Toby's parents until Monday and my house is a disaster with the many projects that I'm doing (redoing hallway, stripping more furniture) I'm in the midst of scraping black stain off a gate leg table when there's a knock at my door. My door is actually a $20 door screen that I got at Home Depot and prop in my front doorway so I don't succumb to paint, stripper (fill in the blank) fumes. I see this earnest fellow with a tag around his neck and a leather portfolio holder and I'm instantly like I'm really busy right now. And I am. My hands are in latex gloves, covered in black goop, I'm in crappy stained clothes and am not wearing a bra - clearly this isn't a good time to sell me something. But the man says he isn't trying to sell me something, he just needs a few minutes of my time. I can get a security system installed for free if I'll put out the little markers (they're solar so they can even be seen at night) and I live on a corner so they're figuring I'll get a lot of traffic - um if they can even see the marker through the weeds that have taken over my front yard. I am absolutely horrible at turning people away and quickly feel guilty for being nasty initially, I don't know that I was but I probably looked harried.

So I invite the man in to sit on the sofa and show me the brochure about the system. He asks if I know many of my neighbors and I think how there are some I know but that most of them I'll say hi but that's it, otherwise I feel like I'm bothering them. This few minutes of my time is taking close to an hour as he gets my information and repeatedly stresses the free system, aside from a $42.90 monthly fee. What? You realize all systems have monthly fees don't you. Okay I say, juggling money in my head as to whether this is worth it or not. There was a rape in the neighborhood, although it was on the other side of the neighborhood, there has been petty crime. I wouldn't think twice of getting a security system until I suddenly became single mother of two with a big house with a single pane, easily broken, basement window in the tiny dark alleyway between my house and the neighbors. I hate myself for it but I do get scared from time to time. Of course, during the midst of this hour with the salesman I explained that I'm a single mom and that the house is a mess because I'm alone for the week. Nothing like revealing too much. I needed a plumber on Friday to repair a faucet and tried to make small talk asking whether he was Scandinavian because his last name looked like it. I'm adopted he says and I suddenly feel awful for even trying to engage in small talk. He seems to sense this and says that it looks like I'm working hard removing paint on the house and I chirp Yep, I'm very busy stripping cringing inside at how bad that sounds. So the sales rep has me pick a date for install, that the technicians are very flexible and I say the 15th giving myself a chance to step back from this situation I've got myself in. The sales rep keeps stressing the security precautions the company takes, pointing to his badge, his shirt with logo, and all this security talk has me suddenly getting panicky. During my credit check he says they also check that I haven't killed anyone in the past five years, is this just very weak salesman jokes? My mind goes to the horrible movie Funny Games where a wealthy couple are victims of a perverse home invasion in the Hamptons by really fresh scrubbed preppy looking fellows who wind up killing the son, husband and wife- no happy ending her. It was a completely repulsive depressing film, the only redeeming quality was watching Tim Roth (sigh) and envying Naomi Watts body. But my mind is now suddenly thinking how wise was it of me to invite the stranger with the name tag (last name Godwin which sounds completely made up, like something on Criminal Minds) into my home when I'm alone and why is this taking so long.

Then he tells me they're going to install it tonight. What? That a technician should be at my house within 45 minutes and set up takes about hour. I thought you were doing it on the 15th. I'm looking at the stripper uselessly drying on my table, the man hums a little tune to himself, nervous perhaps? And I'm now thinking the technician and salesman are going to do something awful to me. Tonight isn't a good time I tell him, can't the technician do it in the morning. More calls on his blackberry, he's trying to insist the technician put at least the panel in tonight because they charge $100 an hour for their time but I shrug and say tonight really isn't a good time. He makes another call then leaves, looking a bit forlorn and taking my invoice order with him. I'm kicking myself for letting him know the perfect way to get into my house. I'm wondering who I can call to invite over when I realize there's no one, at least no one I'm close enough to that I wouldn't worry about looking silly or would know I look silly but that they are a good enough friend that I don't have to be nervous about that. I did call the customer service number and there is someone by that name working in the Pittsburgh area. I was apologizing for being paranoid and the customer service rep was nice enough to commend me and say you never can be too safe. I don't feel safe, I feel alone and gullible. But I don't think I want that security system even if I do feel alone.

milestones

Owen just lost his first tooth and, of course, I had to thoroughly document the event. This tooth has been causing Owen many tears over the past two days, although, like his mom, Owen is quick to tears. It started bleeding at the care center at the gym yesterday and he was crying. The woman watching him there was like, you just got to pull that out for him, which I tried but I couldn't. As soon as he started crying I couldn't do it (I'm hoping/praying I'll be better equipped to handle things as a nurse with strangers - can you imagine me folding on giving a shot if someone starts tearing up?!).

Tonight at bedtime he told me I could pull it out if I got some paper towels. So, eager beaver that I was I ran down and got some paper towels to protect my delicate son from seeing or tasting blood. He still looked nervous so I ran back down and got ice to numb the area, but, dear readers, he just started welling up again. I put aside the paper towels, ice and told him that I couldn't pull his tooth out. This was no way to go about losing his first tooth. I gave him a hug and a kiss, told him I loved him and went downstairs (quite a workout going up and down those stairs in this heat. But, lo and behold, just a few minutes later I hear a cry of joy and Owen shouted that he'd pulled it out.

I went upstairs, camera in hand, and my dear little sensitive son was crying, this time because he was so excited that he got it out. I got out the tooth fairy pillow, put the tooth in the tooth pocket and hung it on his dresser. Owen asked how the tooth fairy would get in the house, would she use the door or a window. I told him I thought she might tap on the window, since she's a fairy, and I'd open up the screen to let her in. Then he asked what she does with the teeth, I shrugged my shoulders saying I didn't know. I tucked him in and gave him another big hug and kiss, then went downstairs again. But folks the tears didn't end then, five minutes later I hear a yelp and went upstairs to find my son in tears once again. What's wrong I asked wondering if the other loose tooth was about to come out. I don't want to give it away. His tooth. I assured him that we could keep the tooth and that I would explain things to the tooth fairy, 'I think she'll understand. She'll probably think highly of you, knowing that your tooth is that important to you.' So... I've got to find a dollar bill somewhere and a teeny tiny bag for the tooth, which I was planning on saving anyway, but Owen just breaks my heart with this stuff.

P.S. I swear I do feed Owen, even if you wouldn't know it to look at him.

Shit on my Grandma's hands, and I'm not using that as a euphemism for sticky food residue. Her hands literally had dried brown stains on them; over the backs of her hands, the fingers, her thumb, under her nails. It made my heart sink, my fussy Grandma left like this. I was thinking surely that couldn't be what I think it is. But after wiping her off and gently sniffing, I knew it was. I called the care manager to let her know my Grandma had excrement on her hands. What? she said to me. Um, poo. She had been brought to breakfast, eaten breakfast, taken to the bathroom after breakfast, then put in her bed and still no one but me had noticed the brown stains on her hands. The hospice nurse had been there just the other day. How had no one noticed these shit stains on her hands that clearly had been there a while. But I didn't want my Grandma to find out just what was on her hands and why I was so annoyed, she kept saying her hands were fine. So I turned it into a game. I told her it was her day to be pampered. I soaked her hands in a warm, soapy washcloth then patted them dry. I got the nail kit from the care manager and removed the old polish, clipped her nails, meticulously scraped underneath each nail, inspected her cuticles and wiped them again for good measure then put a soft pink on her nails. All the while my Grandma protested about me going to so much trouble, she never stops with that. But I lulled her into abeyance telling her to relax, it's her day of pampering, in that case you better pamper this other hand too she says, then closes her eyes. This is supposed to be a good facility. They know that I visit my Grandma regularly, what happens to the people who don't have someone visiting them?

The whole debate about health care reform makes me apoplectic. We should have universal healthcare, in fact I'd socialize the proposed plan even more, allowing illegal aliens to be covered. It's totally unethical to do otherwise. These vocal idiots at the town hall meetings talking about big brother (I bet they've never read 1984) and wanting to spend money to tighten the borders?! You see an injured person in the street and if they're of questionable ethnicity are you going to ask to see their green card? It's disgusting. It's racism or, at the very least, massive xenophobia. It might seem a stretch from the poop on my Grandma's hands to healthcare reform but something needs to be done. We're going to have a ton of senior boomers and not all of them can afford quality care, like what my Grandma gets, $150 a day for that benign neglect. Walking down the hallway to visit my Grandma I passed the dining room, empty but for the leftovers from breakfast and one man asleep in his chair, slumped so far forward his head was level with the table. It torments me. I'm not her power of attorney, my mother is. This place seemed wonderful when we visited it almost three years ago. We never thought she would live this long and I never thought I'd see so much to make me so angry. My Mom doesn't want me to say anything because she fears they would take it out on Grandma. But this isn't good enough, for my Grandma, for anyone. It's not humane. They cut costs by reducing staff and I know the care managers make very little. If you're overworked and underpaid in a stressful job it's easy to go on autopilot but I think people in this vulnerable condition deserve respect. I see the same thing in hospitals. It's a big reason why I want to be a nurse- how hard is it to be kind and respectful to someone when they need help?

pffft

Please tell me the cliche that it's always darkest just before the dawn holds true because right now I'm reaalllly close to losing it. The money I spend on fixing up the house, still waiting for the pointing to be finished (although, to be fair, the pointer said he'd do my house between other jobs) and the list of stuff to fix here just keeps growing. I've got a plague of fucking huge flies hanging out in my dank basement (please tell me someone else in Pittsburgh is dealing with this due to the hot humid weather?). My lawyer charged me twice what Toby's did when Toby's lawyer did most of the work, Toby agreed to that in order to save me money. I'd like to call and complain but the lawyer gave me a $700 courtesy credit, what if he rescinds on the courtesy if I make a stink? My Grandma is dying piece by piece. It's so hard to witness and makes me so mad to see what passes for care at the facility she's at. But, apparently, she's in one of the best facilities in the state, it has the highest patient/care giver ratio. And Toby's on vacation, which he more than deserved with his crazy work schedule and finishing school, so I have the kids all to myself until the 20th. Oh and Owen won't go to be until 10:30 most nights so I feel like I have no time to myself (although I do have the gym). In other words I'm having a 'Calgon take me away' moment really badly right now.

new banner?

Like the kitchen table that's driving me insane I don't seem to be having much luck with a good summer banner. Here's another filler until I get a summer shot I'm satisfied with or until fall rolls around.

happy birthday owen!

At 6:38 tonight Owen turns 7. We had a small but very fun party for him at my house today. I always want to figure out a way to put into words just how much my children mean to me and how much I love them. I think of parents who write letters or journals to their children and I so wish I could do that but when it comes to expressing my feelings for them I just feel completely inept. I mean I can vent about them with no problem but why is it so much harder to express the love and joy they bring me? I can't describe what I feel in my heart for my children, but here are some pictures of my beautiful boy on his big day.

The house actually looks okay in this picture. I like how the green in the dining room looks here but in real life I still feel it's too dark and am planning on repainting it a lighter green. Yes, I did strip the paint off the windowframe in the dining room as well. The plan is to repaint it, it was very textured by 100 years of paint on it, and make roman shades (God knows when I'll get around to doing that).

I love this picture, Owen looks adorable and the expressions on his friend and Oona's faces are priceless. I think we reached the maximum amount of candles on a cupcake with seven.

I still don't know what he wished for. How can I not know that, the kid can't keep a secret to save his life.

Owen didn't want to break pikachu so we opted for disembowelment by every child grabbing a ribbon at the bottom, sort of nice because that way Owen can keep pikachu, although you see Oona in the background with a plastic shovel, I think she was ready to attack that pinata.

The yummy spoils of pikachu - nerds, toostie pops, m&m's and peanut butter cups.

love means never having to say your sorry

Yeah, if you're a two year old or a sociopath. I don't know how so many people loved Love Story with such a half-assed cornball catchphrase. I guess it was trendy at the time, sort of like Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers who both terrify me in different yet equally powerful ways.

So on friday afternoon at the gym I walked into the rowing machine being the graceful creature that I am. I blame it on the fact that I frequently wish I could work out yet be invisible at the same time and I had some confusion with this ideation and my corporeal self tore the skin on my shin on the corner of the machine. Thank God that no one was on the rowing machine at the time. Really unflattering picture of my shin here.

Eeewwww! Then we can get up close and gory with this one. My friend's son had a bad fall on his bike and scraped up his shin and elbow, much worse than this but he had those white dots in the deeper epidermis too. My friend feared it was his bone at first. I think it's adipose tissue (fancy name for fat) but I can't be sure since that was covered in A&P 1 and I was pregnant, very sick and just happy to make it through the class without puking.

These pictures are of Owen doing 'gangster hands' which he frequently does, especially when music is playing, it does not have to be rap or hip hop as long as it's not Dido the hands come out.
And here is Oona doing what she calls 'lobster hands' but then she says look at my claws. Can anyone see the difference between gangster and lobster hands. And why is it that I get annoyed when Owen does gangster hands and tell him to stop but I think Oona doing lobster hands is cute and sort of funny.

Stair progress- so close yet so far. And I don't know what to do once I've finished stripping these darn stairs since the wood isn't all that great (hundred year old pine). I've thought of painting the risers white or grey while putting a dark stain on the tread and then putting a runner on them. Then I'll need to stain the railing to match the stair treads, it's neverending. I'd love to have them just be stained but the wood isn't good enough (as far as I can tell). The hallway will eventually be Brittany Blue, a lovely pale Benjamin Moore blue that I see in many a home decorating magazine. Any suggestions welcome in this department.
Close up of the mastic paint covered mess that greets me on each step. Mastic is a an extremely tough and thick adhesive used to bond things, usually tile but I think they used it on carpeting here, some of the previous owners must have been morons I also pried a thick,squat screw up from the front of one tread - carpet tacks ran out so they just figured why not?! This is on hold for a few more days, until my Smartstrip order arrives.

new adventures in masochism

This fucking table is going to be the death of me. I toyed around with the idea of getting a piece of butcher block to fit this but it would be prohibitively expensive on my budget soo, I figured I'd try to make do with the original table top which was a disaster of mastic and random drilled holes. Removing mastic is the smelliest, nastiest process something that I'm sure, if I was a cat with nine lives I'm now on my ninth. I got all the darned gunk off but the main portion of the table top was not suitable for staining so I figured why not decoupage it with the nice pages from the amy butler scrapbook I'd gotten. Well I needed to buy another ($9.99) to have enough pages but I figured out a pattern I was pleased with and went to town decoupaging it one night. Much to my dismay in the morning I noticed that there were stains coming through the paper and that one of my damn cats had gotten on the table before it was dry so pieces of the paper had come up in paw sized sections. FUCK! I was heartbroken, I did not want to have to go back out and buy two more scrapbook packages to recreate this look. I was totally losing steam, my initial thought had been to try and sell this for a lot of money but who the hell was going to want it, it's too big for my kitchen. Agghh, I was overwhelmed with negative kitchen island thinking. But trooper that I am I'm going to push through. I'm thinking of putting kilz on the top (nothing like huffing kilz which will drop your IQ by 20 points a painting session) and then going with a new pattern I made from the paper I have left. Do you think anyone would pay good money, $300 or so, for this thing?!

mmmm! mastic! absolute nightmare to remove and, lucky me, it's on the stairs I'm working on right now.

looking lovely after many rounds to remove the mastic on the table top. don't even get me started on the inefficiency of my kitchen.

I've done it, at least I thought I had until I looked closer at the table top

back to square one, peeling off all that decoupaged paper was a lot of fun.


round two pattern I'm thinking of using, of course I'll have to do this somewhere the cats can't tiptoe on it.

Toby sent this image of Owen playing Oona's Barbie princess game on his leapster while relaxing? would that be the appropriate word for that position? And take a look at how ginormous his feet look, he's all angles my skinny son. Now I had commented on baffling children sitting positions just a few months ago but, honestly, I think this pose takes the cake

You can breathe easy, my obsession with the chipmunk bag has passed. I think a large bean tote, white with navy or black trim, is much more practical. Maybe I can find a chipmunk pin and put it on the plain tote if I'm so inclined. But I'm still obsessing about the Fox Chapel house, and my neighbors house which I'd like to buy and totally redo - it has such pretty bricks in need of cleaning and pointing and a big two door garage that I'd convert into a cabana style arts & crafts studio.
I just think it comes to having a personality where I'm a bit of a compulsive fixer. I'm quick to clean up, straighten rugs, pictures, repair lampshades that are slightly askew. Anywhere, not just my house. Waiting for a meeting today I couldn't help but stick out my foot to straighten the 5 x 8 rug that was at an angle in the waiting area. It's in my nature and I see so much darn potential in so many houses, they just need to be loved back into shape. Well that and I lot of money and sweat equity. Sweat equity I've got lots of, money not so much. For now I'm on to stripping the stairs, ugh there's so much paint and MASTIC which is horrible to remove and smells awful. Thank God the stripper I use has zeroVOCs because everything I'm removing has plenty to make up for it.
I plan on repainting the hallway, the bold two tone color is driving me batty. All the dark bold colors are driving me batty. I'm not a bold or dark colored person. Don't get me wrong I love seeing it in other peoples house or magazines but I can't live with it. I'm more of the light, calm, muted color type of person.Under the white paint is periwinkle (don't ask I'll show before and after and after pics when I'm done) then mastic, then godawful orange brown congealed faux bois varnish which stinks!

i blame my mother

Really, I do. Whenever I find myself attracted to something inordinately twee I think, dammit it's my mom in me. So when I saw that llbean.com had wildlife totes with little critters on them, I love the word critter which is unbearably cutesy in itself, for $39 I just had to check it out. And then when I saw the chipmunk, my mom calls them chippies, and she actually rescued one that fell into her watering can years ago, well I almost squealed with delight. For now I've restrained myself. Do I really need an olive, a color which sobers it up somewhat, takes the edge of the twee, chipmunk bag? Am I insane? Will I be 60 with three dogs, six cats, a chincilla and an inordinate number of cutesy poo decor in my home. Breathe, So for now, I hold off and look at the tote bag when I'm not cruising for houses in the Fox Chapel area, online of course.

my new pornography

It used to be fashion magazines. I'd flip through all the latest additions and crave, like an addict, the clothes and, even more so, how skinny those models were. I still probably have a case of low grade body dysmorphia but those fashion magazines no longer do it for me. Now it's all the home decorating magazines that get me going. How I lust for the latest issues as I linger in the magazine aisle at my local supermarket with the children safely ensconced in the daycare there - it is too good to be true. Ohh and hitting howardhanna.com after the kids have gone to bed and I can be a virtual voyeur and homes right close by, it makes me drool with envy. I know I posted the dream home that I discovered just a few short weeks ago but now I've really and truly found my dream home. It's in Fox Chapel and has a lovely shady, if somewhat sloping yard, with goregous moonflowers by the front door. It needs about $100,000 in renovations but once this place is done it would be to die for. I know it doesn't look like much but trust me this old style bungalow has so much potential. Now if only I could find a kindly contractor who'd be willing to take me on as an apprentice, and fund me all this money, while I start on this project

this old porch

I have been very busy stripping doors in my home, buffets, window ledges, basment doors, you get the idea. It's been an ongoing stripping summer of me slaving away, scraping off peelaway on my weekends when the kids are with Toby. I have a brick pointer coming to power wash and point three sides of the house (it desperately needs this and I can't wait to post before and after pics of the change) and he said that he'd be coming this week so I spent 9 hours saturday and 10 on Sunday scraping 100 plus years of paint off the front porch). Apparently no one thought to scrape the paint underneath before putting another coat on, so this porch was a textured, chippy wonder. When we moved in the porch was a lovely diarrhea brown which Toby quickly painted a soft green. It was great, until it started chipping off.


I do not exaggerate when I say there are A LOT of chippy layers on this porch

Before. Multiple layers of green, brown, light grey, darker grey, light blue, clear sealer, dark green, and yet another grey paint. Sort of like counting the rings on a tree but more toxic.

After. You might have to enlarge these to get the idea that the porch surface is now much smoother, it's various shades of grey (most likely lead based) paint which I'm hoping will come off more when they powerwash the bricks. The pointer is really friendly and said I'm welcome to powerwash whatever I want. I felt like Homer Simpson on seeing a donut, ahh powerwash.

Scraping the paint layers off the cement (baseboard? I don't know what to call the 6 inch lip of concrete that meets the brick on the front of the house) was the hardest part of this project, which consisted of two rounds of peel away and then two rounds of smartstrip on each section of the porch I did. Yep four steps per square inch, plus vigorous scraping after each step - ugh! No wonder my fingers felt like they were ready to break off at the top digit by Sunday night.

There are various shades of grey here but the porch is now smooth and I'm hoping the powerwash will even it out more to a uniform look. There's no way I'm painting this porch after scraping all that paint off.

And this is what my hands look like after wearing latex gloves for 19 hours in two days. Do enlarge to see it in all its flaky glory. Do you think this means I have a latex allergy? It happens whenever I wear the gloves for prolonged periods during my stripping weekends.

crimes against humanity

Well, to be fair, it's really more like crimes against parenting or being a mom worthy of punishment although that sounds vaguely S&M in a way I'm not intending it to be. Here are the recent offenses playing the guilt/exasperation ping pong in my head.

1. Gouged oona with a key to her armpit getting her out of the car today. At first it looked awful and I thought of making the trip to MedExpress and trying to explain that I impaled my daughter on my car key, How do you explain that exactly?! But after a ten minutes it just looked like a red scratch instead of the nasty puncture I first saw. Phew. I explained it was an accident as Oona bawled and she repeated that it was an accident, but she said it like I just accidently tossed her onto a bed of nails.

2. A couple weeks ago I made owen cry for putting a toy plane that was made in china in his mouth. He was on the couch avoiding going to bed because lately being on another floor is making him (and therefore Oona) scared. Since I worry this could be to the recent separation I don't want to push too hard fearing I could crush their psyches or bring up abandonment issues. He had the toy in his mouth and I told him not to do that, that if it says made in china it could be lead paint and that can make you dumb if you eat it. Of course I then went on to explain that I'm not trying to be xenophobic and have nothing against the Chinese that it's more a nasty thing businesses do to save money. Yeah I really went there with him. So I'm coming up from putting wash in the dryer and Owen tells me he's sorry and then starts bawling because he stuck the toy back in his mouth without thinking and I'm thinking there I go traumatizing my child again reinforcing a worry that clearly does not need reinforcing with my son who is a neurotic carbon copy of me.

3. Mealtime. If motherhood came with a badge mine would have a red slash through it because I'm horrible when it comes to cooking, making meals. They get a lot of whole wheat peanut butter and jelly (really fruit spread) and eggs and Oona eats greek yougurt and granola like there's no tomorrow. And they drink juice, mostly calcium enriched OJ, but juice it's the empty calories (which Owen needs, Oona not so much). I try to make myself feel better remembering a neighbor's Mom who said she's seen Moms put Mountain Dew in babies bottles.

4. I talk about their body types and now Oona will mimic me and tell Owen he's too skinny and that he needs to eat more and she does this scrunching up her nose with a tone thick of judgement and I cringe wodering if I really sound that bad. Then Owen told Oona she was a hippo, which made her proud and she ran around saying she was as big as a hippo and making hippo? noises. So I've nipped talking about their builds in the bud.