Still Obessed With Pockets

March 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Did you know that pockets weren’t always a part of clothes? In the Middle Ages, pockets were actually cloth bags that one wore separately, under the outer layers of clothes.  (That was your useless fact of the day.  I am SO good at trivia games.) Maybe this is the origin of the word “pocketbook”? (Which, by the way, is what my husband calls my purse?  I had never heard anyone call a purse a pocketbook before and I did a few double takes in the beginning.) In modern times, the fanny pack has been used to create additional pocket space for someone… without a lot of success.  Sure, the fanny pack might be convenient, but it looks SO STUPID that any functionality is over shadowed.

Some clothes would benefit greatly from the addition of pockets.  The number one item of clothing that comes to mind is a wedding dress.  Believe it or not, brides do not wake up the morning of their wedding looking that amazing… a little bit of makeup magic is involved (I strongly encourage all brides to MAKE AN APPOINTMENT when using a makeup counter at the local department store—please see ‘On The Job Training’ for more information about what can happen if one decides to ‘wing it’!) Photographers are always reminding brides to put lipstick on.  As most wedding dresses don’t have pockets, the Maid of Honor is forced to become a human ‘pocket’, carrying said lipstick and other essentials, like the bride’s iPhone. (At our wedding reception, my husband elected to NOT use his pockets to store his Blackberry and to instead clip it to the outside of his pants, hanging off the pocket. It looked lovely in pictures, and was definitely what I wanted documented forever.)

wedding dress corrected Still Obessed With Pockets

The-Most-Beautiful-Bride-EverTM

As you can see from these pictures, not only was I The-Most-Beautiful-Bride-EverTM, (after a few (many, many) glasses of Champagne at my wedding reception, I decided to educate my guests on what I already knew: that I was the Most-Beautiful-Bride-EverTM.  I would approach a guest, and inquire “Don’t you think I am the Most-Beautiful-Bride-Ever?” the answer was always “Yes, you are!” to which I replied “I KNOW I AM!”). The Most-Beautiful-Bridal-Gown-EverTM would have been even more beautiful had it had pockets!

wedding dress back corrected Still Obessed With Pockets

The back of The-Most-Beautiful-Wedding-Dress-EverTM … Clearly would have benefited from some POCKETS.

The only thing more annoying than a lack of pockets is…shallow pockets.  Women’s dress pants and skirts are the biggest offenders.  One is fooled by the comforting presence of so-called pockets (“these pants are even cuter because of the pockets! I can safely stow my lipstick!”) only to be disappointed by the deceptive, disconcerting reality of a shallow pocket. I have been a victim many times—my phone goes flying out of my pocket, my lipstick wont’ fit and slides out, never to be seen again.  The shallow pocket also makes bending over impossible as the bulk of whatever is in the shallow pocket doesn’t allow for any bending at the hips whatsoever. 

My husband is a champ about carrying things in his pockets for me.  I am not sure if this is due to a deep understanding of the Truth About Women’s Pockets, or simply choosing the path of least resistance (it is way easier to carry my shit than to listen to my shit).  Men, I urge you to choose this path with your ladies.  It’s the least you can do, considering you don’t have to wear pointy toed torture devices (also known as high heels), AND you have big, comfy pockets.

 

t j wedding Still Obessed With Pockets

Our Wedding Day. Note the use of pockets by my wonderful Husband.

 

 

Filed Under: Clothes Tagged With: , , ,

Pockets- The Best Accessory of All

March 28, 2012 By 1 Comment

Today I am wearing pants without pockets. And I am losing my mind. I keep trying to put my iPhone and keys in my nonexistent pockets, which sets off a chain reaction of disasters.  I am brutal on anything hand held (i.e. anything that can be dropped), so as one might extrapolate, my phone gets dropped.  A lot.  I do all I can not to drop it; it just happens.  And the Jedi Mind Trick of pockets that don’t exist isn’t helping!

Last weekend, I went to a LOVELY birthday party (Happy Birthday, Cousin Hannah!) hosted by one of my best friends (great party, Aunt Liz!).  Liz was a cool, sophisticated hostess—circulating among guests to make everyone feel welcome, coordinating the food and drinks effortlessly, and chasing after her one year old daughter.  Because I know Liz, I know this is how she rolls.  However, a more causal guest might have attributed part of her cool, calm collectedness to her amazing dress with pockets!

pocket pic Pockets The Best Accessory of All

Aunt Liz's Perfect Pocket Dress

 Liz could keep up with her lipstick, a small toy for Hannah, and her phone in case a guest was lost and therefore looking for directions.  And, she looked great while doing it (of course, some of the credit for multitasking comes from the Mom’s Skill Set that a lady gets when she becomes a mother.  Other notable skills include eyes in the back of one’s head, the ability to tell your child’s cry from every other child, and the ability to simultaneously cook dinner, do laundry, and talk on the phone.)

I am making the case that pockets should be standard issue on garments; much like the flame resistant coating is standard on children’s PJs.

Filed Under: Clothes Tagged With: ,

Aunt Judye Cake, AKA The Best Birthday EVER

March 22, 2012 By 3 Comments

My favorite meal is cake and champagne. (Marie Antoinette might have been on to something.) More specifically, Birthday Cake and champagne.  Birthday Cake is one of those universally uniting foods, like ice cream (outside of a lactose issue, if you don’t like ice cream I suspect you are a Communist) and Chardonnay (especially at family holidays). At birthday parties, the cake is the most exciting part, especially if the crowd is under five (having attended three birthday parties this weekend, I am well versed on this).  Even those who refuse a piece of cake inevitably sneak a bite or two.  I can’t think of another food that will send one into diabetic shock as quickly as the marriage of empty, sweet carbs (cake) and sugar glue (frosting). This, of course, is a main part of the appeal of birthday cake.

mail Aunt Judye Cake, AKA The Best Birthday EVER

At some point during our dating days (I remember those days—words like spontaneous, sleeping in, out to dinner, and well rested come to mind), I attended a birthday party for a relative of my husband.  The birthday cake BLEW MY MIND.  This cake reminded me of birthday cakes that were served at my birthday parties growing up. I have found that memories can grow better with time, sometimes becoming even better than the actual event.  This birthday cake lived up to the hype of long remembered cake from my youth. As this was early in our relationship, I drew upon my inner reserves of dignity, decorum, and cotillion manners so as to not cram that cake into my mouth as fast as possible and go back for seconds, thirds, and even fourths. It was difficult, and I give all the credit entirely to my mother. Try as I might, I could not get this cake out of my mind.  I worked up my courage, and I approached his mother to inquire about the recipe.  While she was thrilled I liked it, she said it was Aunt Judye’s recipe and she did not have access to that information. I eventually had to marry into the family to get the recipe (and you were so worth it, honey!). Aunt Judye even made a wedding cake for us using her top secret recipe.

 

alena cake Aunt Judye Cake, AKA The Best Birthday EVERArmed with the recipe, I set out to make new converts.  It wasn’t hard.  My girlfriends and I have a tradition of celebrating birthdays by having “lunch” at ridiculously cute and trendy girly cafes.  Every birthday girl got a birthday cake.  One of my best friends, who is a birthday cake connoisseur (if such thing exists. Outside of the under-five set at birthday parties, I have never seen anyone get so excited. It’s awesome!) She has declared mine “almost as good as Aunt Judye’s!” Naturally, every family birthday party we have, I make sure to cut a piece for Alena and stick it in the freezer. Last time my father came to visit, he saw the “Alena Stash” and demanded to get in on the action. (Daddy and Alena: please come visit. My freezer is full!)

 

Mike Bday Aunt Judye Cake, AKA The Best Birthday EVERWhile I have gotten the cake part down, I struggle with the frosting. (Frosting goes on cakes. Icing is a glaze.)  OF COURSE Aunt Judye is amazing at frosting.  Roses? Amateur Hour. Fancy script? Of course.  Multiple tiers with fancy pants decorations on the side? She’s got that. I, however, am the proud creator of the World’s Ugliest Cakes.  Even sprinkles, sparkles, and multiple attempts at script in multiple colors cannot distract from the leaning, frosting-mixed-with-crumbles, and uneven cakes I produce. Thank Goodness they live up to the taste, even the honor, of the title “Aunt Judye Birthday Cake”.

Emma candles aunt judye Aunt Judye Cake, AKA The Best Birthday EVER

Filed Under: Family, Food Tagged With: , ,

FREE: A Great Four Letter Word

March 19, 2012 By 2 Comments

FREE.  It’s one of my all time favorite words.  I’m not the only one with the gene that can turn “free” into “free for all”.   FREE is also a favorite of Craig’s List users. It doesn’t matter what is being offered, the fact that the item is free makes it greatly coveted.

I base much of this conclusion on the responses I have received when I list things on the “Free Stuff” section of Craig’s List. (Other sources for this conclusion include my own brand of genius (also known as Julia’s Math). I feel it my calling to share this genius with others; it’s a gift, and it would be so selfish not to share.) When we purchased our home, it was filled with, ahem, lovely (read: disgusting) tan/beige/neutral/rental colored carpeting.  We both prefer hardwood floors, and so as soon as we were able (as soon as my wonderful, most generous Grandpa came to visit), we had the wall to wall carpeting ripped up and replaced with real wood. As an added bonus, the slightly musty odor that wafted around our house also disappeared! (SHUDDER. Carpet is GROSS!).  While my Grandpa was WONDERFULLY generous, we were on a budget. (Also, we are people who LOVE a deal!) Thankfully, we found a great contractor who was VERY reasonable with price, and great with service.  One of the reasons that the price was so discounted was because we had to do some of the work.  The job of hauling off the ripped up carpet, tacks, and padding wasn’t included in our great deal.   (This seemed like an easy thing to do. I figured we have a small house; surely the amount of carpet won’t be very big—one pickup truck load at best.  Also, when I heard ‘old carpet’, I did not figure in the padding and the tack strips…) Long story short, I came home from work to a rather large (way more than one pickup truck load) mountain of stinky, dirty, musty carpet covering all of the two car carport. The “good” news was the carpet was completely ready to be reinstalled, should one wish, because it still had the padding attached by the tack strips.  The bad news was my husband wasn’t yet committed to “Team Removal”. In fact, he had gone on the record expressing his concern for huge a large responsibility.  However, as I previously stated, I am all about the Good Deal and the Discounts.  Clearly, I wasn’t going to let a little carpet stand in the way of one.  As I walked into the house (electing to walk around the mountain of carpet instead of scaling it), he reminded me of his feelings. He then politely inquired (Captain Smirk) how I was going to remove all that carpet from the carport (he was all I TOLD YOU SO). Pftw. Didn’t he know who he was talking to? I clearly had the answer (I usually do. I just wish he would ask for guidance more so I could dispense more answers). I told him as much—that I had it covered. His response was something along the lines of ‘this is gonna be interesting and I definitely need a front row seat’. I placed the following ad on Craig’s List “Old Stinky Carpet. Beige/Light Brown/Rental Color complete with tacks and padding. Winner must take all.” In less than twenty minutes, I had four emails. Four different people wanted my old nasty carpet, I assume, for the sole reason that it was free.  The lucky family came by and loaded it up, thrilled with their prize. They did mention that they didn’t need all of the carpet, but I reminded them of my ‘Winner Take All’ clause, and assured them I had several other folks who would gladly take it all. Once reminded, they loaded their stinky, new-to-them carpet into a trailer and drove off into the sunset.

Craig’s List came to my rescue again by answering the question “What does one do with a bunch of six inch cement blocks?!” The previous owners of our house had a huge garden in the back yard that they lined with a perimeter of six inch concrete blocks. The blocks were an effort to stop erosion. (WTF? How long did they plan on living? Doesn’t erosion take millions of years?! )  My husband LOVES our yard, it is the main reasons we choose the house we did (that and given our price range and the location, it was one of four choices. It was also the only choice that didn’t have the garage converted into a bedroom. No matter how nicely such a remodel was done, the room still smells of gasoline and new tires.) One of ‘life’s simple pleasures’ for my husband is walking around barefoot on gorgeous, green grass.  Because one of my life goals is to make my husband happy (Thomas, I swear it is!), the blocks had to go.  One bright, sunny Saturday we headed out back, armed with shovels, to rid the yard of the blocks.  Four long, dirty, sweaty hours later, the blocks were out of the yard and stacked up. Now what? I overruled my husband’s idea of keeping the blocks around because ‘they are expensive and we might need them someday’ (I suspect it was more of his irrational hatred of throwing anything away than the actual value or potential future use of the blocks). Craig’s List to the rescue! Those blocks must have been valuable because within ten minutes, I had three replies to my posting.  A nice man showed up (with an antique truck. The truck doesn’t have anything to do with the story, it was just weird), loaded his blocks, and left. This past weekend, we were doing some work in the yard to get ready for a new swing set (swing sets are not listed in the Free Section on Craig’s List. I keep checking though, because you just never know.), and found twenty more stupid cement blocks.  No hesitation this time, we posted to Craig’s List immediately. So quickly, in fact, that we didn’t’ bother to dig them out of the ground!  And someone still came and got them!

Craig’s List is the ultimate proof that someone’s trash is another’s treasure.  The free section combines a window into human behavior AND a way to get rid of old, unwanted, stupid shit. A win-win!! Oh, and if any of my loyal readers (Mom and Dad) see a free swing set, please let me know!

Filed Under: Clothes

Packing: Why I Always Have the Largest Bag at the Baggage Claim

March 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Packing.  Oh how I HATE YOU.  The worst part of any vacation—even worse than the pile of crap that is inevitably waiting for you on your desk—is still better than packing (not to mention its ugly sister, Unpacking). I recently tagged along with my husband to Barbados for a few days (Thank you honey! Sometimes there are SOME perks to an otherwise ‘challenging’ job!)).  If you had seen my luggage, you would have guessed that I was leaving the country for several WEEKS, not DAYS.  (I was prepared for fancy dinners, causal lunches, pool side/beach lounging (drinking fruity drinks) and day adventures into town. I also had lounging clothes, gym clothes, PJs, and beach wear. And some backups in case I hated what I had packed for each activity. Hey, I was a Girl Scout!) In a rare case of “beating the system,” I avoided baggage fees by volunteering my husband to transport my suitcase on the airplane he was flying. As you might imagine, I was thrilled. It did however cause a lot of confusion for TSA and customs. (“Ma’am did you forget your luggage?” No, thank you.  “Are you sure?” Yes, I would remember if I had a bag. Really? AGHH!) He also was volunteered for the snacks, wine, beer, and straw hat that I had packed. He wasn’t complaining later when he was drinking free beer, though, I promise you that!) My husband was also volunteered to bring his co-pilot’s girlfriend’s luggage, as she lives much closer to us than to her boyfriend.  After we got back, she called to thank my husband for schlepping her bag. (I love you! You Are The Best!), She apologized for packing so much (she had twelve pairs of shoes. Even I think that is ridiculous) but she also apologized for me packing too much. Say what? I wasn’t sorry at all! In fact, I would do it again because I Was Prepared (although, I did wish I had packed another pair of shorts, and a couple of different sundresses.)

The packing process is very painful for me. I labor for days, trying to figure out the perfect combination of outfits: casual yet sassy, comfortable yet not homeless chic.  Yet I always always get it wrong.  Ironically, I have professional status when it comes to traveling.  There was a time in my life I was on an airplane at least once a month. Conservatively, I flew one hundred and fifty round trips from 1998-2008 (oh pre 9/11 travel, how I miss you!). So, it’s not like I don’t have any practice packing. This should be quick and easy.

I remember when (and why) I assumed the job of packing for myself.  As both sets of my grandparents lived out of town, our vacations were spent visiting them in Knoxville, TN or WashingtonDC.  (I am now beginning to understand what heroes my parents were for traveling with my sisters and me. Back in the day, my sisters and I got along as well as Iraq and Iran.  On a good day. I have since sat down with my parents and explained to them that for all its wonderful parts, St Louis is not and never will be a vacation destination and if they want to see their favorite (only) (she is still totally their favorite, though) granddaughter, they need to make Atlanta THEIR vacation destination.) My packing karma was forever changed on a trip to DC when I was eight. My parents weren’t stupid (just macho sadist) and they knew three active daughters plus one tiny hotel room plus grandparents and a house full of non-kid friendly items equals DISASTER. As a result, our trips were always methodically planned out. When we were in Washington, we took full advantage of the museums on the National Mall.  (Which is not a mall, as a friend of mine learned in the 8th grade on a visit to DC when she demanded that we leave the park and go to the mall.  Sad day for her!) When in Knoxville, we shopped the local Big Lots. (If we were good, we were given five dollars to spend on anything we wanted in the store. Even candy!) On the first day of our trip, I excitedly laid out my clothes for my full day of museums and sightseeing…but…I didn’t find any socks. Anywhere.  This wasn’t good. My mother had forgotten to pack socks.  In fact there were no socks, for anyone. For an entire week of hot, sweaty, summer vacation.  I don’t remember a lot about that trip, but I do remember stinky gross feet. (Not as bad as my sister’s feet. When she came to visit once, I thought we had a dead dog. Remember those squiggly lines that came off of Pigpen in Charlie Brown? That’s what was coming from that room.  Yep, we had gym shoes festering in my guest room. IF SHE WOULD JUST WEAR SOCKS…) I have packed for myself ever since.

I cannot pack for trips in a way that would maximize space and limit unnecessary items.  I do all the right things- I make lists, I plan ahead, I query my host about what clothing would be appropriate.  I always wind up packing with the mentality that More Is More; and one might conclude that my ultimate goal is to be a well stocked Super Target (Super instead of regular because I always pack my own breakfast, snacks, and wine).  If I get a headache, a stuffy nose, the sniffles, a stomach issue, even a sore muscle, I am prepared.  I won’t be hungry (or sober).  And, I can guarantee I will be well dressed (with a couple of changes of clothes.)

My husband is a pilot, and a natural consequence of his career is a lot of time away from home living out of a suitcase. While the man can pack quickly (a week trip in under five minutes), and efficiently (small carry on suitcase), he too suffers from Can’t-pack-itis.  I can count on one hand the number of trips he has successfully completed by the criteria of 1. Remembering to bring everything he needs, and 2. Remembering to bring HOME everything he needs.  That man has left Blackberry chargers in hotel rooms all over the world. (Literally. And, there is nothing more annoying that needing a charger and the only one you can find is for a European plug. So Frustrating!)  If you found one in your hotel room, you can send us a check. The poor man always forgets something. I remember a trip with a suit but no shoes (for a funeral).  Pants with no belt (for a wedding).  A trip north, in winter and he forgets a coat… the list could go on. (For a couple of years he had a nasty habit of “accidently” losing his Oakley Sunglasses every time we went somewhere.  That got expensive and really old really quickly. The only part more annoying than buying new sunglasses every time we turned around was listening to the WHINING about sun in his eyes (to be fair, the sun might possibly be a little brighter at 35,000 ft.)

I am definitely the girl you want with you when you travel.   One of my sisters has a policy of not packing  anything when she travels with me because she knows not only will I have whatever they need, I will have several choices.  If anyone is planning a trip, I am available! And, as an added bonus, I have gotten the airport security line down to a science (see Airport Security: How I Learned To Stop Judging Others).

Happy Packing!

Filed Under: Things That Drive my Husband Crazy, Travel Tagged With: ,

Paint: A Family History

March 4, 2012 By 2 Comments
Is there anything a fresh coat of paint can’t fix?  A coat of paint makes all the difference in the world. It can freshen and brighten up a room. It can totally change that room’s appearance- a mini remodel! Paint isn’t so expensive that your husband has a stroke when you come home, full of ideas, and announce A Project (he still might have a stroke when he understands the amount of paint needed to do said project, or even what said project is, but that stroke won’t be over the cost!) Stop me, I sound like a commercial for Home Depot! (Another way I know I am getting old is that I so heart you, Home Depot! I could spend hours cruising your aisles, much the way I used to at the beauty counters at Nordstrom- is it coincidental that both involve colors and paint?!…)
I am lucky in that I have always lived in nicely decorated spaces. (As soon as my parents finished their home, they would restart everything from the beginning again. It was an endless loop of paint, wallpaper, and fabric. The only thing that would prevent them from restarting the existing home was to move into a new one.)  Except for an unwavering devotion to the St. Louis Cardinals, my parents are not sports nuts. They will gamely tune into the St. Louis Rams and watch them lose every Sunday (they both watch the team and watch them lose as the Rams don’t see winning as a desired outcome of a game.).  To fill the void, they decorate.  Let’s face it- everyone has to be fanatical about something, right? The only arguments I can remember my parents having were over decorating issues. These fights were not of the knock-down, drag out variety; my parents are way too sophisticated for that.  The tactics they used were sly and cunning- I learned my guerilla warfare attacks from the best! (The most memorable one was over what I can only call legwarmers on the chain that held up the chandelier in the dining room. They looked stupid in the 80s over leggings, they look stupid now over jeans and they looked especially stupid in my parents’ dining room. The chandelier was a beautiful, antique frosted glass dome that hung from the ceiling on gold chains.   The chains evidently got chilly (from the frosted glass?!) and needed to be kept warm.  ‘What would be better than legwarmers?’ my father asked himself.  He must have had some weird, thankfully briefly lived, obsession with girly accessories. My father went through a phase of tying stupid silken ropes with tassels (that bore an uncanny resemblance to BELTS) on everything he possibly could.  Loafers wear tassels well; lamps- not so much. My mother would wait for my father to go out of town for business (which was very frequently) and she would untie and hide every rope.  Perhaps she wasn’t very good at hiding places because as soon as my father would come home, the stupid ropes were back on all of the lamps. And possibly even the cat.) This love of decorating meant walls, trim, doors, etc were constantly being painted. The smell of paint is linked to my childhood, and therefore very comforting to me. (As a toddler, I was hospitalized for high lead levels. My parents were stripping lead based paint in their house and had put me to work. Kidding! But I really was over exposed to the stuff, even though they were careful. Hire a pro and go on a vacation if you are so tempted..)
When my husband and l bought our first house together, the first thing on The List was to paint all the disgusting ‘natural’ colored trim white.  (My husband performed one of the Miracles referenced in the Bible- he painted for fourteen hours a day for five days.  Thank you honey!) Once that was done, we got to select wall colors (way more exciting for me than for him, shockingly). I knew I wanted something that would bring out the best in our furniture, while complimenting the colors in the house.  Armed with no fewer than forty-two paint samples from the ‘local’ Home Depot, I headed home. (Being new to the area, I didn’t know we had a Home Depot less than a mile from our house, so we were driving twenty minutes the wrong way through traffic each time we needed something, which was approximately every five minutes.)  I picked out my colors using the proven scientific method of holding the sample up to the wall in BOTH natural and lamp light.  Satisfied, I had the paint department mix my colors, and hurried home to start the job… The dining room color I loved.  The living room color was too pale, so back to Home Depot. I instructed the paint department lady to “make it a smidge darker”.  She very politely (really, she was super nice) asked for some clarification as to how much pigment to add to achieve a ‘smidge’. Whatever she ended up adding was perfect.  (I did learn an important lesson this winter when I went to touch up the walls in living room- make sure you document the ‘custom color’ as it will be impossible to replicate it. Impossible.)  Next, we tackled our bedroom.   I selected a lovely, restful blue grey that accented our all white bed linens (I loved those linens. One of the first things I did when I found out I was pregnant was to change our linens to TAN. More on that later…). As it happened, a deep purple was on the same color card.  I experienced a Brilliant Idea- I would paint the office off of the same color card! So, it turns out that deep purple isn’t really very pretty, nor is it a Brilliant Idea when it is all the eye can see… (I also learned a few lessons in the office. When painting, a thicker coat doesn’t take the place of two coats. It will look drippy and stupid.  ‘Cutting’, especially a ceiling, is harder than it looks. While I had mastered the makeup brush (please see ‘On the Job Training’), the paint brush is a different beast.  Also- make sure that the tape you use to protect wood work is on in a straight line.) Four coats of ‘bleached almond’ later, we were back in business…. We painted the guest bathroom twice. (I found a way cuter shower curtain, which changed the color of the towels, which changed the color of the walls…duh.)
As you could guess, my husband was definitely Over It. This was a problem because I could not do the painting by myself.   There is something this Super Woman cannot do- paint the walls all the way up to ceiling! (This is ‘cutting’ a ceiling.)  Also, some of the colors I had chosen weren’t really working for me (they were so ugly the cat refused to even go into the room)… so to get around his declaration of “NO more painting ever,” I employed another tricky tactic that totally took advantage of his job (you will recall I used this same tactic to clean boxes when we first moved in together).  When Thomas was on a trip, I would paint the entire room the new color… the entire room minus the four inches under the ceiling! Ha! Genius! The room would have to be finished, and since I had proven my total ineptness at cutting a ceiling, Needless to say, Thomas wasn’t as impressed with my guerilla tactics as I was.
So, the office and the guest bathroom now fixed, I moved on to the most important room in the house- the Kitchen (in my family, we consider eating to be the family sport).  The kitchen looked OK, but it needed some color to break up the bleached almond walls (it was one giant beige box).  Inspiration struck- one of the walls needed to be orange! I went and visited my good friends at the Home Depot paint department; I had the perfect (albeit custom) shade.  I know this idea was divinely inspired because I was able to A) paint the wall B) cut the ceilings and the corners C) not spill the paint and D) apply tape in a straight line against the opposite wall.  I stood back, admired my work… and heard the door open.  Thomas was home early from his trip! I was so excited to show off my decorator (and painting) skills! He took one look at the wall, turned to me, and asked me Why The Fuck Had I Painted The Wall Halloween ORANGE?!  Excuse me? I had never (OK maybe once with the purple office) turned him in the wrong direction when it came to color, and who was he to judge, Mr. All-Beige-All-The-Time? And did he not SEE the perfectly cut ceiling and corners?! I told him to not speak to me until the paint had dried and he was ready to say he was sorry.  In the morning, the paint had dried and he apologized. And the kitchen looked amazing.
The next game of Fun with Painting started about three years ago, when I found out I was pregnant. Naturally, we needed to repaint several rooms, as we had to convert one into a nursery (Emma’s room is a beautiful rose color- ‘Dusty Rose’ by Ralph Lauren.  I learned my lesson about custom mixed paints and went straight from the color card! Did you know that all Ralph Lauren paints have been discontinued and the formulas are no longer on file at Home Depot?! I cannot make this up.) I also wanted to update our bedroom, as I had a feeling the white bed linens weren’t the best choice going forward. I found a beautiful, silky duvet set that was sand colored, with a beautiful blue border. Most of the time. The fabric was beautiful, and it changed colors depending on the light and the folds in the fabric.  I took the sham into my friends at Home Depot, and we color matched the fabric.  Of course, I needed a custom color to match this one of a kind color.  It looked wonderful when I compared the fabric to the custom paint; I was so excited! Once on the wall, the two matched perfectly. And by matched perfectly, I mean by a blind person.  It was awful. On to custom paint #2.  The same blind person showed up for work that day.  We had the same results with #3, #4, and #5.  After #5, my husband asked me, in all seriousness, if I wanted a divorce and was too chicken to just ask for it. Because, he explained, at that point, I could have it- and I could have the house, the checking account, the cars- whatever I wanted, just please God let him stop painting! Finally, we got the color right. (I returned the unmatchable duvet and picked out a different, solid colored one.)
The good news is that the bedroom walls compliment the bedspread, the kitchen walls look fantastic, and Emma loves her pink room.  The bad news is that I have no way of touching up the various marks from picture frames, Christmas trees, toddlers, and furniture (Fun With Furniture is similar to Fun With Painting, and I suspect I enjoy this game more that my husband does too.)  I have no more painting projects in the works (depending on whom you ask this is good news (Thomas) or bad news (me).) In more good news, we are still (happily) married, despite what my husband might have suspected.  I hope my life lessons will make someone else’s life easier, and more peaceful. As I reflect on how far we have come, from the country dirty blue wallpaper disaster to the modern, clean colors that surround us, I realize and understand how lucky I am (not only to have a home that is happy, but to have one that isn’t filled with boxes and remodeling crap everywhere). Please remember, as you make changes to your living space, that it is not underhanded or mean or sneaky to use guerrilla tactics to ensure you get the desired outcome- be it paint, lamp legwarmers, or emptying out boxes.
Filed Under: Family, Things That Drive my Husband Crazy Tagged With: , ,