Sticky Situations

He makes the cutest mommy sounds when he is nursing

We had an expensive ooopsie the other day.  Linda has this great set up in the den for her laptop, cords, chargers, and cameras.  It's a small bookshelf with wicker baskets separating each group of items.  She never has to go hunting for a cord or charger again. So she can take baby Chimmie's woobie-sucking photos, upload them and post without ever disturbing him (as you can see from this mornings photo.)  It's handy and a great solution except when she by accident knocked her coffee cup over.  It was one of those Starbucks travel cups with a tight lid, so it wasn't a huge mess, just a few spots on the carpet.  What she did not realize until the next day is that it dripped on the expensive camera!  Now the lens is sticky and won't open on it's own.  The only way the lens will open is if she uses her fingers to separate it, then it pops the rest of the way open.  She does not want to try to clean it out herself, so she is going to take it to a camera geek.

"How Dare YOU lock me in a room!"

  In other exciting news, there was a cat situation this morning.  Chip Cat was trapped in one of the downstairs bedrooms all night.  Linda must have shut the door and not realized she was hiding in there.  This morning she slept until 7:30 because her Kitty Alarm did not go off.  Her first thought was that Chip finally took a permanent nap.  Chip always comes for "Kitty-Kitty" because its the food call.  No sign of her.  Linda was afraid to go looking because she would have flipped out if she found her dead.  Then she heard a faint "meow" and knew she was just trapped somewhere....without a litter box.  Eww........

Is it Time for Bed Yet?

Linda had a quite afternoon. She desperately needed it since she has been running crazy all week.  Her Water in Motion launch went great this morning.  All the studying paid off and the members loved it!  Teaching TKD was fun too, until a kid got his nose busted up.  (She didn't do it, he threw his head into the punch from another kid.) She told him to stop blocking with his face and maybe next time he'll keep his guard up.  After it started bleeding, she felt bad for saying that and let him sit out the rest of class.  After a quick lunch and bath, we all cuddled on the couch to watch the live broadcast of the HS basketball championships on the internet.

  Both the girls and boys won 1st place!  Taylor was even on air wiping the floor down.. Good job Taylor.  After the game she cleaned out the bathroom cabinets and hung the drapes back up. Next she screwed all the new handles onto the kitchen cabinets.  That was harder than you would think!  Not all the holes lined up properly with the new hardware and it was frustrating.  Some are just hanging there by the top screw.  It's only 6:32, but she wishes it was bedtime.  We all could go to sleep right now.

Saturday on the Trail

Swiffer Picker Upperer

Although it was a deluge last night, complete with thunder and lightening, this afternoon is beautiful.  Jerry took us out on the trail for our walk.  He had to carry us over some of the flooded areas, but overall we did fine.  Linda is going to take a hot bath and relieve some of her soreness, then get to work on the house.  We are not used to living with a messy home, but why vacuum the carpet if it's only going to be pulled up in a few days.  (She did vacuum the LR/DR last night.)  She is also OBSESSED with the Swiffer.  It works like magic on the kitchen and foyer floor.  She bought the cheap $10 one without the squirter, but I can see her getting the real-deal once all the floors are wood.  She'll Swiffer with the dry pad every day and then use the wet one once a week. Linda wants to get her friend to make her this reusable pad.  It's such a great idea and a lot less waste.   Her Eureka! is on it's last wheels.  It served her well and she will be replacing it with the exact same model.  This time she can't keep sucking up socks and curtains since it makes the motor smoke. 

No Painting Today

Unbelievable, Painter Man did  another 12 hours straight of painting yesterday! It was after 10 p.m. when he left. He will be going out to do estimates today to get new jobs, so there will be no painting.  Linda bought a pizza home last night so he could have some dinner and he ate standing up and doing little jobs.  It's not like John tinkers around and sits and drinks coffee.  He never stops working.  Linda was gone a majority of the day, but was home for a few hours in between classes and going to church.  We are not going to put any photos up until the curtains are hung, new floor is in and Linda can clean up.  Painting is messy business, for sure.  The work station has moved to the blue room now and we have our living room and dining room furniture back to their right places.  Denise and Tom came last night to do some of the electrical work. The outlets and light switches are over 25 years old and looked super dingy next to the bright white trim. While Linda is gone today, they will come back and finish switching out all of those. Taylor warned Linda "Mom, as soon as you start doing little jobs to fix things, it's like an out of control tumbleweed.  You put new floors, then NEED to paint, then NEED new outlets, then NEED new counters..." The list could be endless.  After the floors are in, that will be it for awhile.  The downstairs will stay the same and so will the bathroom floors.  Linda is so excited with how pretty it all looks.  Sarah just did an amazing job picking out the colors. It looks like it could be on one of those TV home make-over shows!

Definitely "Before"

Day 3 of Painting

John finished the majority of the painting last night.  He worked 12 hours straight, with NO lunch break.  How can he keep working with no food?  If I take a 15 minute walk, I need a cookie the second I get home to refuel.  Linda is still amazed how Chip Cat is with John.  She acts like he is not even there.  No exaggeration, when Linda even moves anything around in her litter box room, she freaks out. If she hears doorbells or any noise not normal, she streaks downstairs to hide.  She has to have everything in the same place or she gets wonkie. Our furniture is literally thrown in a pile in the middle of the room.  There is a lot of loud noises from ladders, paint cans being hammered shut and scraping.  That crazy cat is just sleeping on by the sliding glass door like everything is kosher.  John has to step over her!  Plus, she came up to Tom yesterday to be petted!  Usually I'm pretty shy too, but I've been following John around the house while he paints.  Last night when he knelt down to get some tools, Chimmie licked him on his bald spot!  John the Painter must be some kind of natural Pet Whisperer. I even showed John where my secret hiding spot is.

Cheeeezzze!

I love sitting on John's painting tarps

Gorgeous weather!  We spent the majority of the time outside on the deck while the painting was being done.  Linda did a great job starting the bathroom while John painted the LR, DR, foyer and hallway.  Tom came to finish up the bathroom since Linda had Noah duty.  She had the most awesome day with Noah-Boo.  They spent about 1/2 hour at Lowes buying all the wrong supplies (which all had to be returned) and then the an hour at Chuck E. Cheese.  Noah was loving it!!

This was one of his favorite rides

He started calling Chuck E. Cheese "Cheeeeeeezz"

Noah kept "MOOOOing" at this horse

Monster Boy on the Monster Truck

  He got on and off almost every ride 10x.  Back in the day when Tier and Taylor were little, you got free tokens when you ordered your pizza.  No more. Chuck E. must be tightening his belt, now you have to buy them.  Linda was like 'What?  No free tokens... you can't be serious?"  Linda told the cashier it was Noah's first time, so she took pity on him and gave him a whole cup of tokens.  It turned out she did not need them anyway so she gave most of them back.  Noah loved sitting on all the rides, but when they started to move, he wanted to get down.  When the big white horse galloped, his eyeballs almost popped out of his head.  She would have loved to get a video of it, but she wanted to hold him on, so her hand wasn't free for the camera.  He loved the monster truck, and Stuart Little car best.  When the costume Chuck E came out, he was screeching for him... until ChE walked near their table.  Then Noah clung to Linda like a baby monkey with his arms and legs gripped around her body!  He didn't cry, it was just a little overwhelming for him to see a 5' rat.   After lunch, they took Chimmie for a long walk.  Gretel ended up coming early, so I didn't have time to take my walk with him.  Stay tuned for more painting pictures tomorrow, the colors Sarah helped her pick out are beautiful.

Before Painting

Before bathroom.

New bedroom furniture layout... before painting

We LOVE the new layout of the living room furniture.

What an incredible morning!  The temperature is just perfect and it's not even 8:00 a.m.  Linda and Noah will be out of the house for the first few hours for lunch and then maybe a park (Maybe the petting zoo that Linda took Tier and Taylor to 3 times a week is still open?) before his nap.  Since Noah can't be upstairs with the painting job going on, they are going to lay down to nap in the guest room downstairs.  Since it's new to him, she'll probably have to lay down with him to get him to sleep.  Painter John should be here soon. Linda is going to get her first painting lesson today... from a real pro.  He's already showed her how to "cut in" and the correct technique to do it.  He told her the brush is the most important painting tool you'll invest in.  She is so excited to learn.  And guess what?  Since she purposed in her heart to stop being so prideful over what isn't being renovated, she walked in the kitchen and did not notice ANYTHING wrong... except that the wood floors need to be Swiffered.  That's a good thing and totally normal for her! It wouldn't be Linda if she looked around and didn't see things that needed to be cleaned.  She is going to give Tierney an extra big hug and kiss for rebuking her about her unthankfulness.