Is it any wonder that I'm painting?

My November project is my kitchen. It seems to be taking forever. It started with me thinking about finally replacing the ceiling tiles that were so worn and ugly that it looked more like Grey Gardens. Which lead to painting and scrubbing, and scrubbing and painting. My kitchen has some redeeming qualities, but also some very bad qualities, and I'm afraid it's gone down hill through the years because Hubby and I could never agree on what to do to improve it. And because it was his domain, I left it be for many many years.

So now, I am diving in and taking it in chunks. I can only paint one wall at a time because there is too much stuff in there. And as I go, I am cleaning and eliminating so much stuff. I've cleaned out the pantry for the second time since Hubby passed away and came out with two more bins of stuff to eliminate. It's endless. Painting woodwork leads to washing and re-hanging curtains. Taking down the spice rack lead to scrubbing each container. It just keeps on going.

I am on the last wall now. The wall where the stove and fridge live. Wow. I saved the worse for last. It's pretty grubby back there beneath the appliances. And I found 3 of Hubby's favorite knives laying behind the stove as well as old containers of spices, giant dust bunnies and a mountain of grease. Well, okay,maybe not a mountain, but definitely hills! It's going to take a lot of scrubbing before I can get to the actual painting part of this wall. It's quite yucky. But I need to keep mindful of how wonderful it is going to be when it is finished. And hopefully I will get the painting part completed on Friday.

I keep trying to picture the completed project. Keeping my eye on the prize. I'm not going to sink much money into this project. I just want it to be a clean and scaled down kitchen. It;s getting there.

I'm grateful for such a project, though. It is great therapy. Especially for this time of year.
And the rewards will be my sanity and a sparkling clean kitchen!

Top 10 things I hate about this Holiday Season

This is an especially tough time for me. They say the holidays are an especially difficult time for a person grieving the loss of a loved one. They're not kidding. I've upped my meds and I'm still a fecking roller-coaster of emotion.

So here they are. My Top Ten (today, at least) reasons why I hate this holiday season.


10. The Andy / Lindsey Drama that is creating great havoc in an already stressed family. The childish lying and fighting and name calling and careless hurting of people that I love is pushing all of us to the brink of canceling Christmas altogether.

9. Christmas Music. Every time I hear O Holy Night or any other song that Jim and I sang in the church choir, I want to find a bathroom and just have an emotional melt-down.

8. The Duality of it all. Last year the Holiday season was a blur of sadness and stress. This year, there is the stress of the here and now, but there is also the oh too vivid flashbacks to last year as well.

7. Shopping for gifts has always been a difficult thing for me. I never know what to buy anyone and I always fear that they will think I'm a lame gift giver. I don't have Hubby's input this year. Even though he hated Christmas Shopping more than I do, we got through it. This year, I'm on my own to fend off the attitudes of other shoppers and store clerks.

6. Passing a Christmas Tree Lot that we used to buy our Christmas Trees from each year. I always hated having a real tree, but Hubby always insisted on a real one, and somehow, he always managed to make hunting for one a special event. It was the furthest thing from my mind tonight, when suddenly, I went past the tree lot and had to hold back tears.

5. Seeing so many wonderful gifts that I could buy for Hubby were he still here. For years we didn't buy each other gifts because we never had the cash once we finished buying for every one else on our list. It was only in the past few years that I insisted that we start buying each other meaningful gifts, and I think it helped us to get through the holidays with our sanity intact because we were looking forward to seeing the look on each others faces when exchanging gifts.

4. I won't be able to watch It's a Wonderful Life or Holiday Inn without crying my eyes out. I had never seen It's a Wonderful Life before I met Hubby. Our first Christmas together, we picked out The Christmas Tree From Hell. It was so awful, we had to wire the top of it to the wall so it wouldn't fall over! As we were decking the tree, It's a Wonderful Life came on TV and it instantly became a tradition to deck our tree while that movie was on. And Holiday Inn is one of those movies that we always searched for late at night and stayed up watching it while snuggling on the couch together. This year is gonna SUCK!

3. Jerry doesn't believe in Santa any more. My baby has had to grow up so fast in the past year and it just breaks my heart.

2. Gin from Lakeview Cemetery called me tonight while I was on my way home from work. I let it go to voice mail, but listening to the voice mail, I had to choke back tears because she was inviting us to a vigil at the mortuary where everyone who has lost a loved one this year is supposed to bring an ornament and place it on their tree in honor of that loved one. How the hell am I supposed to go and mingle with a bunch of grieving strangers and retain some dignity?

1. My Grandbaby's First Christmas is also my first Christmas without my husband. I hate that more than anything. Especially with things being so messed up in his life right now.

I know, I know. This sounds like one hell of a Pity Party. But this is reality. I am trying so hard to press forward and keep positive. I don't want to drag The Boy down into depression as well.
I think next year, The Child and I are going to go into seclusion - at least for Thanksgiving. I just don't want to walk this road year after year. We're gonna shake it up and do something different. These are survival tactics and we need them!

Painting can only lead to dancing....

I have been painting my kitchen slowly but surely for the past few weekends. It is quite a project because I have so much furniture in that room.

It just makes sense to pull stuff away from one wall at a time, paint the wall, paint the trim, give it a second coat, sometimes a third, and then move on to the next wall.

That in itself sounds like a big project. But it is also leading to many other big projects. It prompted me to clean out my pantry and part with two more big boxes of stuff that we will never use.

And it lead to cleaning out the cat boxes and a total scrub down of the floor beneath, and re-organizing the kitty litter supplies.

And now, I'm thinking about completely swapping out furniture in there. That room is so crowded and uninviting. But if I move the big cabinet into the dining room, that will be major work as well. Do I have it in me? My back is already threatening to rebel on me. And will I be happy with the result?

And I REALLY ought to disassemble the window and take it in for repair. But that would be a real pain to do.

Ah, decisions, decisions! But I have a 3 day weekend to ponder / accomplish some goals!

Duality

It's November already. Crazy.
Things have been quite stressful at work lately. There are a lot of rapid changes in progress right now and I REALLY don't need any more change in my life right now.

There are days when I feel like I'm on a plane of duality. I could tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing a year ago today, and I can tell you what I have planned for tomorrow all at the same moment. It's tough because I know I need to try to stay positive and keep going forward.

So I'm passively looking for a different job. There's not much out there right now, unless I want to work all hours of the day and night or do seasonal stocking for Christmas. But it IS nice to know that I could chuck it all to the wind and take some low paying job and still have spouse's benefits to fall back on if my income were to go lower than what I make right now.

In the mean time, thanks to Sis-in-Law Tania, I have new tiles up on the ceiling in my kitchen. That needed to be done five years ago, but Hubby and I could never agree on how much effort we wanted to put into repairing the kitchen and what direction to take. He wanted to go modern hi-tech and I wanted to stay with the old-world charm of the house. So now it's just me. I guess I get to do it my way. Now if only I could decide on colors!!! (I think I'm narrowing it down!).

Just having a new ceiling in that room makes a world of difference. It feels cleaner and healthier. But it makes the walls look ancient! Can't wait to get to painting! But there is a lot of patching to be done first.

So it's off to the Hardware store this morning again. I'm surprised they don't all yell "Hey! Brenda's here!" They all ought to know me by name by now! But I'm glad that I have so many projects to complete. It keeps me sane!

Wizards, Whiskey and Whatnot

I went out to the pub last night. It was the first time in 20 years I've been out on Halloween Weekend. Hubby never liked crowds.

Crazy Ivan was playing down at Surf City and I really wanted to see my Brother-in-law belt out some great tunes while wearing a Gnome Costume and I was not disappointed in the least! They sounded amazing and their costumes were so cute it was a shame they weren't included in the costume contest!

I love that so many people put so much thought into their costumes! There was a Little Red Riding Hood and a Big Bad Wolf, Mister Dick Head, The Queen of Hearts, a female Fire Fighter... just too cute! My sis was a Chocolate Covered Bon- Bon, and my son was at least for one night, a Doctor! Well, okay, he was a Gyno Doctor, but a Doctor none-the-less!

I was a Gypsy. A Pikey Traveler. An easy costume to put together with stuff I had in the house.

It's really a shame that Hubby didn't like crowds, because he loved live music, and he would have been so proud of his brother! Jay and his band are amazing! The range of songs they do is fabulous.

Each time I hear them do Diamonds and Rust, it brings me back to the days when our band was still playing. It's hard to believe it's been ten years since then. I traded in my microphone for my Jerry, and have no regrets about that. But because of those "Good Old Days", I am blessed with an extended family that I would never trade for anything.

So.... it's nearly one in the afternoon, and I'm sitting here in my jammies and hubby's housecoat. Normally that would sound appalling, but we were up until five, allowing Myke and Rick time to sober up enough to drive. My big accomplishment for the day will be taking The Child Trick-or-Treating. And then maybe a late nap! Heh!

Note To Self for Next Halloween....

I really didn't want to wait until the 11th hour to get around to carving pumpkins.
And yet here I am, two nights before Halloween, and I finally carved the first of 3 pumpkins.

A few things I would like to remind myself next year....
Don't leave the pumpkins on the porch and bring them in and start carving right away. My hands were FREEZING!!!!!

I need to remember to bring them inside to warm up a bit first!

Another thing to remember is that I'm too damned old to sit on the kitchen floor to do this!
I felt like a gimp trying to stand up and not touch anything with my gooey pumpkin hands!

But then again, We've made many changes here in the past few months. Maybe by this time next year I will have decided that I want a table in the kitchen again. Who knows?

I also want to remember the cool ideas that I found on the This Old House web site about carving decorative pumpkins. I've lost ambition this year already, but it would be cool to try.

Also, The Child isn't so much into the carving portion of pumpkin carving as he enjoys helping to design them and seeing the finished product. And thank heaven for that! I don't really like the idea of him using a giant knife!!!

He also says he likes pumpkin seeds.... but I know he will only sample a few and I can share the rest with my loved ones!

Happy Halloween every one!

I actually get to go out to a bar tomorrow night and see my Bro-in-Law's band play!
I am so excited about this! I haven't been to a bar on Halloween Weekend in 20 years!
It's gonna be a blast!

Boy on the Bus

So this kid gets on the bus today. He's about 7 feet tall, built like a refrigerator, and he's wearing electric blue shorts, an Apple Red T-Shirt, with a plaid jacket.

I'm thinking "Hmmm.Going for the super hero look today,Bud?"

And then he sits down and pulls out a comic book to read!

Am I psychic or what? LOL!