Liam has been trained by Matt to such an extent that now, whenever he does anything on purpose, he looks at me and with a great amount of conviction says “GOOOAAAALLLL!”
Oh, dear.
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Cardinal Rule
Matt’s cardinal rule of home improvement is that everything takes five times longer than you think it will (you know, if you’re lucky). Today I made a grave error in judgement by ignoring this rule. It started simply enough: I was going to stain the handrail and newel post on the banister we had installed a couple of months ago. This part did not cause me a bit of trouble. The trouble came when I realized (for the first time with absolute certainty, although I had many a prior inkling) that natural oak is not a wood color that I wish to have in my home. I can certainly live with the natural oak stain on the floors in the main living area and just knowing that I plan to have the kitchen table and chairs refinished at some point in the future calms me considerably. I can even live with the unfinished pine hutches we have in our dining area and bonus room because in my mind’s eye they are already painted with a distressed black finish. Today, at approximately 3:00 pm (after having stained my beautiful handrail and newel post) I made the unfortunate discovery that I could not live with a natural oak handrail and newel post. The vision I’ve had for those stairs in my mind’s eye is something like this:
I think that’s even the same newel post that we have.
The first problem is that in order to stain the stair treads with a dark stain I need to fully remove the protective varnish. I did a little research and found a “green” stripper that is supposed to be safe to use inside the house and off I went to the Lowe’s. By 5:30pm I had covered the stair treads in stripper. The second problem is that that stripper now has to be removed. In order to do that it has to be scraped off and then wiped down with mineral spirits (or a “green” mineral spirits substitute, apparently). I have no idea how many rounds of this it will take to fully remove the stripper, but it’s obvious that it won’t be one. The third problem is that because the stripper isn’t fully removed and because I don’t want to burn my skin off I can’t kneel, lean, or sit on anything that has been stripped in my attempts to strip the tread above the one I have just partially stripped. The fourth problem is that the protective chemical gloves go up to the elbow and I still have huge leper-like poison-ivy-infested strips on both wrists and up my arms. Chemical gloves do not breathe. Huge leper-like poison-ivy-infested strips need air. The fifth problem is that it is currently 11:20pm and I only completed half the steps. While I write this my dear husband is scraping the stairs. He did not sign up for this, unless you count that whole for-better-or-for-worse thing…
Skink Watch 2009: The Hunt (Series Finale)
Last night Matt finally saw Frederick (which is what he named the skink after he saw him and simultaneously stopped making fun of me and started planning tactical manuevers for Skink Hunt 2009). There were a couple of sightings last night (which is odd because we’ve never seen him at night before — my theory is that Fred heard Matt’s statements of disbelief and came out during his beauty-sleep period to show himself — my secondary theory is that this lack of essential skink sleep caused the events of today, Fred was simply not on his game) but we finally gave up and went to bed. The real action began today during Liam’s nap. By the time I came downstairs (about an hour after Matt) the living room looked like this:
In case you can’t tell — both couches are moved, there’s a dolly in the left corner of the picture (used to lift up the trunk that was also moved and propped up on shims and books), the lamps are moved, and the coffee table is sideways in the center of the room. What the picture doesn’t show is that there was also a towel stuffed under the door to the hallway, the doors to the hutch were open, at least three of the games were sitting out and missing their tops (which were spread around the room to be used as skink catchers), and there’s a broom in the middle of the room. When I got down there Matt had him cornered under the couch but when I used the broom to try to shove him out towards Matt he ran and we discovered that he fit under the “baseboard” (the strip of wood that someone apparently thought would pass for a baseboard at some point during the remodeling of the basement). Matt tried slowly running a shim under the baseboard in a vein attempt to flush him out that way. Eventually the baseboard was removed but Fred wasn’t giving up that easily so we ended up sitting on the couches watching Must See TV on Tivo in hopes that he would come running out. One of the helpful skills I’ve acquired during the past week has been an ability to hear a skink running (no lie), so when I heard him we were on the move again. To make a (very) long story a little shorter, the end result (after a fantastic show of reptilian prowess on everyone’s part) was this (Fred’s under the Urban Myth game box top (yes, Matt noted the irony) which is under several books including a particularly apt title):
Next Matt carefully scooted the stack over the carpet to the door:
Next he went about creating a perimeter barrier and prepared for the final push over the threshold:
And finally, success:
My hero, upon completion of his mission:
The End (hopefully).
Skink Watch, Day 5
The stupid thing is still in my house, crawling on my things and creeping me out. Here are the happenings in bullet-point form:
- Matt has still never seen the skink. We’re not sure if this is because A) Matt is much scarier than I am or B) Skinks aren’t nocturnal and Matt’s really only here in the evening or C) Matt goes a huntin’ with Liam and Liam is loud and skinks don’t like the loud.
- I have now had three separate sightings from halfway beneath furniture.
- I no longer watch television in our family room during the day because I can feel his beady little eyes on me the whole time.
- I have seen several (phantom?) skinks upstairs but Matt thinks I’m making them up (and maybe I am).
- I have mistaken the drawstring on several different pairs of pants (yes, I have multiple pairs of drawstring pants that make an appearance on a regular basis) to be a vicious skink coming to eat my face off by crawling up my leg.
- Matt killed a cricket in the workout room last night and (as happens fairly regularly around here) left it on the floor. When we were skink hunting a few minutes ago there was one leg at one end of the room and one leg at the other and no body anywhere to be found.
So what do we do now? How in the world are we supposed to get an animal who is very quick and scared of humans to come to us so we can put him in a box and release him back to his kind in the backyard?
If I see the thing upstairs I’m seriously moving out and if I ever see a picture like this with my child,
someone will pay.
Scoliodentosaurophobia
The little blue snake I put in Liam’s Easter basket used to feel much more benign.
Losing It?
Rant:
If you write articles or a blog that focuses on weight loss then you should learn the difference between lose and loose. Really, if you had any semblance of an English class you should know the difference already, but that’s an entirely different issue. I mean I’m certainly no Shakespeare, but continually reading about people who are working to ‘loose’ it is contributing to the fact that I am, in fact, losing it.
End Rant.
Coffee
I poured the water in. I scooped the coffee in. I didn’t turn on the dadgum machine.
Sigh.
Happy Mother’s Day!
What Does It Say About Matt?
Liam’s newest word is “socca.” Not pottery, or interior decorating, or even Indigo Girls, but socca.
Matt couldn’t be any happier and I’m starting to think that the capris I have for summer would go really nicely with that minivan right about now…
What Does It Say About Me?
I’m not sure I really want the answer to that question.
Fact:Â Yesterday I attempted to make coffee and forgot both the coffee and the water.
Fact:Â Today I attempted to make coffee and because I was paying attention I only forgot the water.
Third time’s a charm?