Around the House

Update on the spray painting project:  It turned out okay.  In fact, the table looks pretty good, especially when the dining room lights are low and you don't stare at it too closely.  David made a big fuss about how great it looked, which I pretended was ridiculous but of course it actually delighted me.

BEFORE
(moved out from its normal resting place in the dining room, with the glass top removed)

Covered in primer.  Cooper supervised that process.

AFTER
(back in dining room)

 It does look much more like it belongs in the room now.

I can't believe it sat over there in its shiny gold glory for so long before I decided to paint it black.

Project Living Room is also coming right along.  Pictures to be posted later.  I think we have decided to repaint, though, so the big question is whether we tackle that before our Vancouver trip, when I'm still teaching, or after or trip, when I'm prepping for the new semester.  I'm inclined to want to do it sooner rather than later, so I think we may just take it on next week.

Teaching The Bluest Eye has been okay.  It's not too hard to distance myself from Pecola Breedlove's story, considering our circumstances are entirely different.  But I don't think I'll ever teach that book again if I can help it.

I sewed a doggie cover for our backseat.  It is essentially a fleece blanket with straps attached to it so it can hook around the head rests in the front and back seat, creating a kind of hammock to keep the dogs contained.  This will prevent Little Mac from jumping into the front seat, where she settles comfortably on my lap (the ONLY time she ever sits on my lap, except occasionally when people she doesn't know come over and then she claims me as her territory and uses the additional height of my lap as leverage when growling and lunging at anyone who gets to close to us).  Anyway, once she settles on my lap, she's there for the duration of the car ride.  If I shift my weight too much, if I need to get chapstick out of my bag, she just might get crazy.  Makes for a stressful car ride.  You never know what could set her off.  And it's hard to eat Sonic tater tots with a dog on your lap.  So we prefer to keep her confined to the backseat.  We'll test it out this weekend, but it was a super easy project and if it works, I will be very pleased with my craftsmanship.

We've had a good set of thunderstorms come through here the last few days.  I've always loved a good storm, and David loves to look at the live weather radar online because he is a huge nerd.  The only member of our household who does not enjoy storms is Cooper, who feels the need to lie up by our heads, on our pillows, during the storms.  Except he doesn't lie still, he trembles and shakes and moves around and sticks his paws or his butt or his drooling face in my face and although I don't mind him sleeping in our bed, I draw the line at the idea of doggie butt-hole being on my pillow.  I mean seriously.  So he's been keeping us up nights, and the rumble of thunder during the day sends him scrambling for my lap, regardless of whether there's a laptop already occupying that space.

A big storm came through Saturday night and it leaked into our closet.  We'd had a small water leak there a few weeks before, but nothing major and we had sort of dismissed it and figured we'd deal with it later and maybe we'd need to put a new roof on the entire house, etc., etc.  Well, Saturday night, I opened the closet door to find water pouring in, dripping down the back of the mirrored doors.  We dragged out a shelving unit with David's clothes in it that had gotten close enough to the drip to get his clothes wet, covered the floor with towels, and listened to the dripping sound while Cooper alternating shoving his ass and his dog breath into our faces all night long.

Sunday morning, it was time to take action.  We've been out of town the last four weekends in a row, so we needed to be very productive.  The leaking roof was the first project.  David climbed up on the roof with the water hose, and I ran back and forth between the bedroom closet and outside to tell him when water started coming in.  This was slightly ridiculous, but, in the end, effective.  He managed to find the leak, and after a quick trip to Home Depot and another hour or so on the roof, we think he's got it fixed.  He also used our wet-vac to suck the water out of the carpet, sprayed that mold-killing, moisture-drying paint stuff on the walls and ceiling, while I washed all of his clothes that had gotten wet, and then reorganized my side of the closet, including my shoes. 

When I was finished with that project, I washed all the windows in my backroom/sunroom, while David power-sprayed the siding.  Good times!  The windows look good, though, so then I was motivated to take down the curtains and wash those.

The windows are bare.  Little Mac dubs herself Guardian of the Curtains that Lay Upon the Futon.

They sat in a pile to be ironed for a day or so.

Do not even think about ironing the curtains on which I recline.

And then I got them back on the windows and felt pleased with myself.

Little Mac was slightly disgruntled.  She continues to lurk on the futon.  I continue to lament the fact that we use a futon as a legitimate piece of furniture.

In non-productive news, we've started watching Game of Thrones.  David recorded all the episodes, so we're making our way through the first season.  I was reluctant to watch it because David has an obsession for period-pieces in which people wear togas and carry swords, while I prefer period pieces in which people wear corsets and carry parasols.  But Game of Thrones is pretty intense and addictive.  So now it seems that we are the sort of TV viewers who will basically watch anything that HBO airs as long as it has violence and nudity and is not recommended for children.

Life just keeps on keeping on, but all of my activities feel like distractions instead of like things I'm actually doing because they need to be done. 

Well, the leaky roof needed to be fixed.  Beyond that, we're killing time here folks. 

A friend of mine once told me that her mom redecorated the house just before her parents got divorced.  She used the project as a distraction.  Something to keep her busy and occupied.  Got the TV room completely redone to her liking, and then they separated and she moved out to an apartment.  Which she could then decorate.

I think she had the right idea--that redecorating can be a nice escape from Huge Life Issues You Don't Really Want to Confront, because I personally am currently finding throw pillows and paint swatches and HGTV utterly fascinating.