My People Have Found Our Color......

I think.  I'm pretty sure.  It's an Olympic color called Blackberry for the bead board.  It looks very much like navy blue.

It's very hard to get the effect of it from pictures, but here it is up against some color I-can't-remember-the-name-of-but-it-doesn't-matter-because-Lowe's-saved-it-for-me kind of a grey or blue or lilac color.  I really like whatever color that is because it looks different depending on what is around it and I plan to go with purples and grays for accent colors.  This will be the living room and hallway colors.

This color, one step up from Blackberry and called Silhouette something, is basically a pretty periwinkle blue/purple.  I got it in case I lost my nerve with the Blackberry.  You can't really tell anything from these pics.  Perhaps at some point I will at least figure out how to take pictures with the Android tablet that up unto this point has been worthless to me.  Perhaps.  I do not let myself stress about it.  I find that life in so much easier when you don't care a great deal about details like this.  Getting older has it's compensations.....

And here is the Blackberry again up against the something-something Antique Lace that was a Valspar ready to go sample.  I looked at yellows and whites for hours, unable to pick any one color that I liked.  Then the voice inside my head said "Like you would be able to tell the difference once it's on the wall........does this really matter?"  Well.  No, it did not really matter.  So I just went with what was ready and what do you know?  Pale yellow, pretty much exactly the color of butter that I was wanting for the kitchen anyway.  God Wink or the victory of apathy?  You decide.  All I know is it worked out pretty good.

Now I can get started painting the bead board so it will be ready for installation.  It makes me feel so much better to get this hurdle over with!  Now, back to fixing cracks and sanding so that our walls will be fresh and new and ready to hold beautiful, colorful paint.  My people, whoever they are, are no longer afraid of color.  At least from four feet down the wall to the floor.  One small step for me, one giant leap for my people, whoever they may be.  :D

Change of Life.....

Last fall I can remember telling one of my best friends that I had the strongest feeling something big was coming.  I get these feelings from time to time and they are always right on the money.

The other night we were reminiscing about this and marveling at all the big changes that had happened since then, and we were laughing when we looked up and noticed the boys coming home in the 1994 Dodge Caravan.  She said it was so strange to see that van driving around, and then when she got close enough to see who was in it, for there to be 2 boys who looked just alike.  "Wait till you get the dogs in there, people will be running off Main Street," was her remark.  The dogs and the boys are equally good looking, in my opinion.  I am not surprised people would stare.  :)

The 1994 Doge Caravan is now on the road!  The single most important thing this means to me is that I no longer have to go to Wal Mart, or anywhere, really.  There is always a boy more than happy to run and get whatever I have forgotten.  These are indeed good days, long in coming to us.

For the first time in 24 years, I get myself up in the morning, get myself ready, and drive off to work, by myself..  That's it.  That's all.  The first morning I left before The Grand Finale did, I kissed them both and said it was so strange to just be driving off and leaving them there.  They smiled and rolled their eyes, which is as good a reaction as I get these days, and said not to worry, that they would be fine.  They practically patted me on the head, which I tried to take gracefully.

I cried on the way down the street and decided to stop for a donut to commemorate this glorious occasion.

And it was very strange, but they were all right.  Despite my constantly checking my phone in case of emergency all day, nothing happened at all.  Four days in, it just keeps happening.  I hardly know how to act.  The second morning I showed up at work an hour early, mostly because I didn't know what else to do or where else to go.  I am seriously considering setting my alarm for 6:30 instead of 5:15 for the first time in my adult life.  Of course I'm putting it off so I don't get severely disappointed if it doesn't work out, but I am really enjoying just hitting the snooze and not worrying right now.  Every single day it feels like less pressure and more time, and I am reveling in it.

I know this is a blessing, and I am slightly ashamed that I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It feels simultaneously like a lack of faith and good judgement.  I 'm learning to live with it.

Other things I can learn to live with are beginning to disturb me. The kitchen that was clean and empty last weekend is now strewn with debris and we are fixing the cracks in the walls and ceilings.  I have spent almost every night this week pulling off pieces of my walls and ceilings and just flinging them to the floor, where I am not concerned about ever cleaning them up again.  That crap can easily be rolled right up when we remove the carpet, hopefully this coming weekend.  I just pull, scrape, throw, and let the chips fall where they may.  Then I leave them there and I do not care.  This is the first time in my life I have ever done anything like this and I find it lots of fun.  How often do you get this opportunity in life???  How often can you just start tearing on a thread, have it all fall apart, throw it in the floor and not care?  Not often in my life up to this point!  I have scraped knuckles and calloused fingertips, and actually had the thought that I needed a manicure, none of which are like me at all, but there you have it.  This is me, now, apparently.    I just go with the flow, where ever that takes me, and it's working out pretty good.  I guess. One thing about going with the flow is that there is no destination point known to you, which changes everything, really.  This is one lesson I have been grateful to learn.

I'm enjoying being care-free for the first time in many years.  It took me a while to recognize the feeling, so long had it been since I had felt it, but I'm settling in pretty comfortably.  My decision was reinforced last night when I got home after work to find the boys playing their Magic game of cards in the basement, where they had cleared off the table and found seats amongst the furniture piled willy-nilly all around them.  I had to move an empty wicker shelf set to even find them.  One boy was new, and had not noticed that we were remodeling upstairs.  I found this both remarkable and slightly disturbing, but put it down to teenage tunnel vision.  Either way, it looks like we can adapt to just about anything in stride.  

Lots of changes of the permanent variety are happening now.  For the first time in a very long time, I feel like the future holds new things.  Surprises.  Things will be different forever, and they will never be the same again.  We are all getting older, and we are all also getting stronger.

If you are in your 40's or older, and feel like you should start a work out routine, I can highly recommend working on your own house instead.  You will most certainly get a workout but more importantly, you will also never get bored.  Peeling away tape from a crack in your wall all the way to the bare boards has a way of getting your heart rate up that no treadmill can hold a candle to, let me tell you.  Fear of the walls of your house actually cracking all the way through can tax your system more than 100 reps on the most expensive weight machine, no matter how many bells and whistles it is endowed with.  Climbing a ladder 40 times a night will make many more muscles than simply walking for miles, and almost throwing yourself off the top of a ladder?  Because you are about to peel off a stubborn piece of tape/plaster that you've been battling and as God is your witness, you are going to get it off?  It's an adrenaline rush that has only been matched in my own life by having to track down and kill a bat in my own house.

It's also very good for your skin.  I must say that no Biore Strip can compare to the mask of sweat and plaster dust you can achieve just by sanding off mud where holes have been patched in a wall.  Do this above shoulder height for an added whammo for your floppy upper arms, and you've got a winning combination.  If I am not mistaken, this works not only as a mask but also whisks away all those downy hairs that menopause so gloriously, mysteriously and (girlfriends, I tell you) constantly bestows us with right off!  Perhaps forever!  It felt like it was from the roots, but I'll let you know.

Totally up to you, of course, but I believe there is no gym that can really compare to the experience of working on your own house.  At least I can't imagine one, and I would never want to go through these kinds of things in front of strangers.  The bang for your buck is just better served, it seems to me, the way I'm doing it.  For all the aches and pains I feel night and day, I am sitting up straighter, walking more comfortably, and my clothes are fitting more loosely.  I briefly wondered the other day if my feet my finally be shrinking a little, after the 1 1/2 sized gained after pregnancies, but I will have to wait till the swelling goes down to be sure.  My knees protest loudly but bend more than they have in years and even my hips feel less jiggly.  

Not only am I living with all these changes, but I have worked my way up to staying up until midnight and not turning into a zombie.  The first week was shaky, but I think I've got it now.  It's been 10 years since my mother passed, and it feels like the fog of grief has finally burned away and left me with a nice summer day.  I think I've been depressed, hiding, waiting, not caring if things went on because there was nothing I could do about them anyway.  For a girl who always, and I do mean always, grabs the bull of life by the horns, this has been a long time coming.  I can procrastinate with the best of them, it must be said, but when the rubber meets the road I have always been able to count on being in the car, usually driving.  One reason I was able to get out of bed and on with it is because I didn't want my mother to see me this way.  It would not make her proud, it would make her sad, and I could not have that.  I am reassured now, to feel that I've still got it, that I am still me inside here, even if my heart is broken.

Life breaks us all, sooner or later.  Sometimes it takes a while to summon the energy to actively participate, and it is absolutely frightening how easily you can phone it in and the world will let you slide.  My dear Pretend Grandbaby and Bonus Daughter came along right in time.  Without them I don't know how long I would have stayed there, in that quiet place where nothing really happened.  Abigail got me up just by being born, and I thank God for it.  Never underestimate the power of helpless things, for it cannot be measured in reality.

I'm still proud and happy that I never took the pills.  What pills?  The magic pills that are readily and proliferously offered to you for the slightest of complaints from every direction these days, of course, especially if you still watch television!   That all these magic pills can guarantee is profits for lawyers during future lawsuits is something you will also see commercials on.  Even if you only pay attention to these types of commercials for 3 years, you will see evidence of this that cannot possibly be denied.  Think it over.

Maybe you should just get out of bed and discipline yourself and do what God has put in front of you, whether you like it or not.  No whining.  In other words, suck it up, buttercup.  If this sounds like your mother, well, you must have had a good one.  :)  Choose to have a little faith.  That's what I did.  Life will sometimes suck, and that's a fact, and there is nothing to be done about it but just go on.  Choose to go on strong, not by being addicted to some drug or suffering untold side effects for the rest of your life.  No one is perfect, everyone goes through hard times, and the world went on just fine for millions of years without magic pills or lawsuits.  You can, too.    

The boys (who will soon be men) are getting out of their comfortable kid routine.  I am not going to be the one to tell them that their last summer of laying around being lazy kids is in the past, but it is.  They will figure this out soon enough, as they seek jobs in order to pay their own insurance for the 1994 Dodge Caravan.  I'll always be a mother, but my babies are almost 17 years old, and in this house, kids are still considered adults at 18.  Any 18 year old worth their oats is ready for the challenge, anyway, to say the least.

Soon, I will be a grandmother.  This new chapter will happily start with a newly remodeled house, gained by my own hard work, and I am not just talking about work of the physical variety.  With any luck my calloused hands will be soft in time to touch that sweet baby skin.  Oh, the time grows short and I anticipate this new arrival several times every day.  It has been a very long time since I have looked forward to anything, and I cannot imagine anything better than this.

Another chapter of our lives is over forever, and I am pretty sure I 'm the only one who knows it at this point.  But that's okay, I've survived this chapter before.  Twice.  I am ready, and I know that whatever changes continue to come, we will meet them just like we do everything else, no matter how hard they are or how long they take, we will continue forward and do things right, whatever sacrifices that might entail.

Now, back to getting ready to paint.  Still haven't decided on colors.  I've been too busy explaining to the boys that the reason it's taking so long is directly related to the amount of time we all put in.  This is not complicated but what do you expect from boys who don't even mind weaving around through randomly placed furniture everywhere just to find a chair to sit in?  Onward we go, with me praying that nothing worse than the cracks in walls are discovered before we get this done.  I need the rest, and frankly, I've earned it.

The Point of No Return......

Here is the last picture of how the kitchen used to look......in the past.

We may have still had a chance to turn back at this point, but we are beyond that option now.

I spent all weekend packing it up, getting rid of stuff, and making piles of stuff to keep, in order of importance.

In a fit of ruthless sorting, I just threw the kitchen curtains away!

I should have done it years ago but just hadn't gotten around to it.

Check that off the list.

And now all the stuff I sorted in order of importance has been carried to the basement and put haphazardly who-knows-where.  So I guess I will get a chance to second guess my values at some point in the future.

I am already thinking of that time as the "digging out" phase.

How the kitchen used to look.  Goodbye forever kitchen.  It's been......real.

Last night, frustrated with the lack of enthusiasm that immediate, visual results always give us, we decided to mix it up a bit.

The cabinets are all plastic-ed off, taking away our access to regular forks, plates, glasses, etc.

The kitchen was pretty empty and bare.

So what did we decide to do?

Well.........

Running a chalk line where we want to cut.

We decided to get rid of about half the wall separating the kitchen and living room--that's what!

This was not a fast process, as we were learning as we went.

But next time it will be much faster.

Score those lines.  Make them deeper.  Deeper than that.  OK, now go over it again.  Harder.....

The Grand Finale wondered if we should be doing this, probably because they have learned to recognize anything classified as more work right off the bat.

What did we have to lose but gaming time and sleep, respectively?

We forged ahead, as we are wont to do.

A luck would have it, is a load-bearing wall.

Me and my shaaaaaaaaa-dow, going blindly forward, come what may.

This means we have to leave the studs OR put in a header across the top to support the weight.

The weight of the house.  Yikes.

I opted to just leave the studs in.

Why?  Because I'm tired, mostly, because I don't want to cause problems with the roof, but also because there was no where to go but up.  Remember?

Even with the studs still there, it will be better than it was before..  No point in going straight to the top.  Up is enough for me.  I like that about me.

Not fast--but the results are electrifying. *Not literally*

"I will sand them down and paint them", I said.  

"We can put shelves in, hang crystals from the top. ...or something," said I.

The Angel made the argument that to do it "right", we should put in a header and take out the studs.

By now it was getting late and I pointed out all the extra time, expense and general pain and agony this would include.

We agreed the studs could be fine, what with all the extra air and light, and we can always do more later.

*Like that will ever happen*

(Friends just know this stuff.  It does not have to be spoken aloud.)

Since it is obvious by looking at our walls that there are people who like to punch holes in sheet rock, The Angel designated a time for us to get this our of our systems.

I'm not naming any names, but I am certainly hoping we got this out of our systems.

Put yer money where your mouth is, boy.

Oddly, they were hesitant to punch through, on purpose, so to speak.

"But I'm not mad.....now"

They soon got into the spirit, though.  One of the most important things they have learned with The Angel, and all boys need someone in their lives to teach them this, and I believe it needs to be a man, is not to be afraid to get in there and do something.  Especially when you have the self confidence to know that even if you mess things up, and you will, that's okay.  You can also fix it.

You will make mistakes, but that's okay, you can fix them.

This is a lesson that really cannot be learned to early, in my opinion.

Not to mention, if you are aware of the time and effort it will take to "fix" whatever it is, it *may* deter you from making mistakes more than once.  It also *may* not, but that is up to you, isn't it?  As the Master of your own Destiny, it's all up to you.  Think it over and decide, then do what  you think is best, knowing that you will be held accountable for it and you will also be responsible for making it right.

This is life.

Soon the first side looked like this.

Living room side done.  Neatly.

Once we knew where the wires were, we were ready to start on the other side.

This entailed getting my spice and "goodie" cabinet off the wall and moving a counter.

Which would have been fine except that I had already packed away all the extra Wal Mart bags and couldn't find them, so we had to cover what's left of the kitchen table with all my spices, baking supplies, cake mixes, chocolate in assorted forms, etc.

And I thought I'd thought of everything!

This is how my life goes all the time.

I just consider it a learning experience that never stops.

In for a penny, in for a pound--it's our motto.  I believe this often happens with the realization of the  birth of twins, but I could be wrong about that.  See the intercom system just hanging there?  I DID THAT.  IF you have never torn something out of your house I think you will enjoy it a lot.

I even had some fun walking around and pointing at stuff and saying things like "Okay, 1970's intercom system:  GONE."  "Cabinet-over there." *Pointing*

And it happened.

I did not look back or feel any regrets, but then that's not really ever been my thing either.  I've also gotten very good at it, but then I've had a lot of practice.

All I did was make a mental note to get some more bags for the Shop Vac, which I love dearly.  Did you know they are not any more expensive than vacuum cleaners?

Not to mention, much more versatile?  Fun fact.

Soon I could see light through the (straight, neat) cut in the sheet rock on the kitchen side.

The light at the end of the tunnel has been found.

Then it became a kind of race, which with twins, is par for the course.

Almost there!

Since they had done the first side so neatly, they got to knock the whole other side out.
It was fun.

And that, my friends, is how it is done.

The boys also found renewed energy once they could see the end of this journey in sight.

They sawed faster AND did not hit any wires that would have electrocuted them.

WIN-WIN!!

Then, drumroll..............

Ta-DA!!!!

It was open.  It was light.  Air moved through.

And my oldest baby said "I feel like I can breathe better now."

Which was totally an illusion, because dust was everywhere.

However, we all felt the same way.

Illusion or not, it was much better this way.

After that, we decided to make it bigger.

Because that's just what we do.  

We fly by the seats of our pants, and we do it well!  If I ever get questioned on this method, I just refer to it as a "lifestyle choice" and that seems to be acceptable.  *wink wink*  No one can question anything called a "lifestyle choice" now.  Well, they can, they just no longer have the nerve.

Amateurs.....*dissolves into giggles at the insanity that now passes for real life*

We decided on this size, minus the last space on the left because we have wires.  Wires which we now have to cover up but we know how and it will be easy.  No sweat.

Wires are good as long as you don't cut them, which we did not.  Sorry I keep mentioning this but it is an opportunity I am taking to thank God once again that we all survived.  I tell myself things will be fine, and I remind myself that we do have insurance and even an emergency room, but you know.......I still stay prepared in case of ........unexpected results.

The way the kitchen will be from here to eternity, probably.

So now we return to the really dirty work of scraping and sanding.

Okay, that was a lie.
 We have to start that again, as we have been lazy and dragging our feet.

Still.  Tonight it is back to it, the last of the ugly stuff.

Well, that and finding where we put the plastic forks, plates, glasses, etc.

The adventure continues......as does The Grand Finale's education, which is getting to be quite impressive.  If you are into real men who know how to work with their hands and do it right.  
That is also a lifestyle choice.  One I make consistently.  I highly recommend it, but as always, you are free to make your own decisions.
Good to keep that in mind these days.