I woke up Saturday morning with a bad case of the Marthas. Every half done home improvement project and every pile of unsorted crap had driven me to the point of insanity. I had to paint, group, organize, rearrange, and it had to happen that minute. Yes, you can say, “poor Steve,” because everybody else is.
We were at IKEA with my sister’s mini-van at 9:30. We needed a storage system for the spare dishes. Nothing too pretty, since it was going in the basement, but it had to be sturdy. We found what we were looking for, as well as three or four other things that we didn’t really need, but were cheap as hell.
A nice Swedish breakfast and the kids were dumped in SmallLand. When it was time to pick them up, Ian buried himself in the ball pit and refused to get out. He had done that last time we were there. I think he had to do it again, because it was a broken record moment for Ian. OCD. Much tears as the ice-cream reward was rescinded.
Shelves were taken home. Mini-van returned to Sis. While Steve watched Jonah’s baseball game, I painted a dresser set that my mom used in the 50s. A little dusky Benjamin Moore covered my grandfather’s faux finish.
When Steve came back, we vacuumed up the saw dust on the front door that we’re refinishing and stained it a dark walnut.
Then we tackled the bedroom. It has been a dangling sentence in the house for way too long. We patched the holes and taped the windows back in January, but I’ve had school work for the past four months and the paint cans were never cracked open. Well, two coats of Pebble Beach were applied to the bedroom and that chore is now officially checked off the list. The dressers need to dragged up from the basement. Pictures will be tacked to the wall. We need a bed frame and a dark blue rug, but that’s the easy stuff.
I’m sore as hell, but am rather pleased it all got done. These projects have nagged me for months and, though everything is not completely finished, the worst offenders have been dealt with.
I think that I’ve gotten the Marthas out of my system. It’s nice to have a neat, funky home, but it’s important to have priorities. I’m not sure what our priorities are, but I think that “neat, funky home” should be numbered four or five on the list.
Apt. 11d 