Gassy, And Furthermore, Jejune

I was looking for synonyms to help me describe the video you're about to watch.

Banal, yes.

Insipid, maybe.

Inane, most definitely.

Believe it or not, quotidian was the word I entered into my trusty online thesaurus. Quotidian was a favorite of mine in high school. Thought it made me sound wicked smaht n' shit. Never in a million years would I have believed that it managed little more than branding me a stuck-up douche bag. Twenty years later, I'm beginning to see where I might have been a little off-base on that one. Especially since, you know, my trusty online thesaurus didn't even recognize it as a word.

So it's a boring video. I know that. I'm confident that those of my readers who are grandparents won't care, and will watch it 2 or 3 dozen times anyway. The thing I want the rest of you to concentrate on is the manic chatter in the background. That's Boy. And you'll notice, you never see him, but he never shuts the fuck up.

Because Grandma Asked For It

Firstly, I want you all to know that I already know I am a complete idiot. I certainly wouldn't want any of you to feel you had to break your current record for "most posts read without leaving a comment" to point out to me the zen-like totality of my idiocy. I am aware. I am at peace.

Secondly, although I am willing to stipulate that the mistake was entirely mine, and that a smarter person would have automatically intuited that a humble digital camera, in its handy-dandy movie mode, will not record from anything other than a horizontal angle, I would like to point out--in my defense--that the view on the preview screen did change. She was upright and vertical when I was watching her on the camera. But I'm an idiot, see, and it is beyond my puny intellect to understand why the camera would record something entirely different from what I was seeing on the preview screen. This is the way, apparently, of techonolgy and the world of dunces in which I roam free.

Thirdly, it's Norwegian. Deal with it.

Ya'll better enjoy this little photo essay. I spent over four miserable hours last night wrangling pictures out of Picasa and into Blogger, only to have Google crap its ethereal pants and lose them all(again and again and again) at the very last minute. Did I mention again and again and again? I have never had that much trouble posting pictures before. And I don't know what was going on last night. But I've got myself a serious hate on for Blogger right now.

So look long and lovingly at every single one of those silly little pictures. I sweat blood to bring them to you!

Before

So this is what I've been working on for the past two weeks. The big project that's kept me off-line all this time. As soon as I finished the mudroom, I started clearing out Elder Miss's room to be repainted, remodeled and reinvented as Boy and Missy's shared room. It's much bigger than the one they've been sharing up until now. It just doesn't seem right having Elder Miss all alone in this great big room, while the two little ones are cramped together in the small room. Plus, as you can see, it's well over due for a bit of a make over. That patch in the ceiling represents the last vestiges of the old house the way it was before we lifted the roof and added the second floor. It was a hatch that held a hidden ladder that led up into the attic where 612 bats used to sleep and shit in blissful harmony--to say nothing of the mice. How much do I love living in the country?

Anyway, the ceiling has looked like this for four years because we're lazy. And also, I thought maybe the way it looked kind of like piano keys would seep into her subconscience while she slept, and somehow make her into a wildly gifted, if lazy, musician. Or something.


I actually kind of choked up a little as I pulled this wallpaper off. I mean, I picked out this Bear Express border at Babies R' Us when I was but 6 months pregnant with EM. I drove Mister mad with my dithering and fretting and worrying over paint colors. Colors? What colors, you ask. Those are like two of the seven differnt shades of taupe you're allowed to color your stucco in the Utah suburbs. Nevertheless, Mister was ready to strangle me by the time I finally settled on them. And now *sigh* she's all grown up and asking for green walls with pink glittery curtains and Bratz sheets on the bed.


Rather than try to find exactly the right gender neutral shade of gender neutrality, I decided to split this wall down the middle and let the kids pick their own colors. Blue for Boy, purple for Missy. Done.


At this point, I still didn't have any clear idea of what I was going to do with the three remaining walls. I admit, while I was picking out blues that would go with purples, and purples that wouldn't overwhelm blues, I was also playing both against yellowy beiges and hoping to just leave well enough alone. But as soon as I got all that other color into the room, that yellowy beige became just plain yellow. And the whole thing felt like a faulty Easter Egg. I ultimately struck upon the solution to my dilemma from the old sheets I was using as drop cloths.


Grey! Of course. All that and gender neutral too. Just so you know, Elder Miss lobbied hard to keep the blue painter's tape on the door. She thought it was really classy looking that way.

After

There's still a few things that need doing--lights need to be hung and rewired, rugs need to be found, and I bought two awesome mirrors at IKEA that need to be put up, but I need the lights up first so I know exactly where to put them. But, for the most part, this is it.

I think I'm pleased. Mostly. I hope.


This is the view from the doorway towards Boy's side of the room. That dark shadow on the left there is not the door frame. It's the closet that was meant to cleverly seperate the room into distinct 'boy' and 'girl' spaces. But I fear all that it really ends up doing is looking like a great hulking closet RIGHT in the MIDDLE of the FREAKIN' ROOM!


This is the view towards Missy's side. I let them pick out the posters themselves. Well--mostly. Kind of.....sort of. Maybe. Boy was adamant about wanting Superman and a dragon. Missy wanted princesses. So I found a series of dragon pictures that got gradually more princessy-ish (it's hard to see it, but that's a Pegasus in the center of that last frame). The ballerina was Missy's choice. She seems to think anything in a skirt is a princess, and I allow her to think this as it gets me out of having to put nails in my freshly painted walls for Disney's finest.


And here's that closet I was talking about. See. It really is RIGHT in the MIDDLE of the FREAKIN' ROOM! There were several reasons for the choice to place it where we did. I forget them now. Something about neat-o, and cool, and oh yeah, this way Mister wouldn't have to saw off and repolish the shelf above the window. I'm still not sure it wasn't a HUGE mistake, but it's growing on me. We found a cool wall light that will go on that back wall, as will the mirrors eventually. Neat-o. And also, cool. Right? RIGHT?


This is the other side of the closet. You wouldn't believe the deal I got on those curtains. Well, maybe you would, on account of them being so ugly and all, but the colors are perfect match, and the kids call them "firework window sheets" so I love them. Mister thinks they need to be hemmed up 12 or so inches. I hate that I might agree with him, but for now I'm choosing to ignore him.

And now onwards and upwards to Elder Miss's new room. I have until March 26th to get it done. Shit.