Curses! Soiled Again

Here's what my living room wall looks like with the paint dry. This is also what the kitchen, dining room, computer room, boys' bedroom, hallway and our bedroom walls look like. Only the bathrooms, laundry room and closets escaped the rampage. True, it doesn't look so hot, but the new paint has a much better surface and can be wiped off. To be honest, I can't decide if it's worse than before or not.

Now, if you're the sort of person who has matching socks AND shoes for your kids every single day, and you can find your extra tube of toothpaste, you are probably wondering why I didn't just test this questionable Korean paint in an inconspicuous corner or interior closet wall before I plastered my entire home with it. Believe me, the idea crossed my mind, then leapt nimbly away, singing as it went. La la la, la la......

On the other hand, if your kids have three-week old ratnests in their hair and you haven't seen the bottom of your laundry basket since aught five, you will certainly understand what would have happened had I opened the can and painted a small bit in a hidden place:

1. Can would be closed poorly, resulting in crusty, sticky mess;

2. Location of small, inconspicuous painted spot would immediately be forgotten; and

3. Can would be stored 'temporarily' in laundry room and slowly but surely covered by lint, dirty clothes, toys, extra computer cables and phone wires, and empty grocery bags, never to be seen again.

Now I am faced with a terrible choice, one of those ones with a special name that I should know that has no good outcome. Should I paint over the blotches with the actual matching white cashmere-like paint, only to have it crudded right back up? Or, would it be better to live with the blotches? Opinions welcome, but if you think I should have tested it first: La la la la, I can't hear you!

Stories from Saturday

Painting in and out of Korea

Today was an exciting day at my house. The walls have needed touching up since, oh, thirty seconds after we moved in.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that I'm not too picky about marks on the walls, or well, anything. Our beds are never made, our laundry is never folded, and yesterday Weston complained that the floor was too dirty to eat off of. I had to bring him a towel to eat on.

But I finally reached my limit on the walls. I could stand the chocolate fingerprints, the stickers, the scrapes, and the crayon/pencil/ballpoint pen/marker/fork tine art in every room. Last week, Shane discovered a new technique for wall art that utilized a grape popsicle, and that put me over the edge.

I know what you're thinking: 'You could just try cleaning the walls once in a while, you sloppy pig!' But our government issued walls are surfaced with a strange, soft and porous paint that soaks up messes and is impossible to clean. It's like trying to keep white cashmere clean. Not that I would know, because I definitely can't be trusted with white cashmere. Or cashmere of any color. Or white fabric of any kind. Moving on now.

Anyway, I nagged Lloyd until he brought home a gallon of the strange Korean paint, supplied by the base housing office. You can see it in the picture. It has a funny smell, and it's probably a good thing I can't read the can, because for all I know it says: 'Not for use by people. Only for use by robots or dogs not intended for consumption. Will poison meat. Do not breathe, touch or look at paint or you will shrivel up and die'.

I 'touched up' the walls, which as you can see from the pictures, involved completely covering the bottom half of almost every wall in the house. I can only hope that when the paint dries, it does in fact match the original color.

And, on the 'out of Korea' front, you may be saddened to hear that Lloyd has boxed up the Mini-me ship painting and sent it to his mother for her birthday without ever unwrapping it.

Conversations with Weston: Peer Pressure

Today I was talking to Weston about the words 'Jack' and 'Weston' written on our dining room wall in fat blue marker.

Me: Why did you write on the wall?
Weston: Jack said it was okay.
Me: You know better than that. You make your own decisions. Don't listen to Jack.
Weston: But Jack makes me think I want to do what he wants.

Think it would work for me? I'm going to see if I can make him think he wants to fold laundry.

Today at the Thrift Store

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. When I went in this morning, the hallway and donation room were overflowing with those beautiful garbage bags of destiny.

Pickings have been pretty slim lately, but it's moving season now and things are looking up. Here's a partial list of today's donations:

Shrek Chia Pet
Stack of brand-new Shane-sized white t-shirts
Bag of kitcheny things, including rotting garbage
3 packs of various types new crayons and markers
Folkmanis Alien-in-a-Flying-Saucer puppet
Plush tiger cub backpack
Purse, complete with cosmetics and photographs

If that works, use it!

It's probably not apparent, but I spend a lot of time pondering various wording when I write. There are lots of sticky wickets: subject/verb agreement, who versus whom, and dangling participles. Sometimes I actually delete whole brilliant thoughts because I can't turn them into even mediocre sentences. But at least I'm not as bad as this guy.

Another tricky grammar conundrum is that or which. If you look it up, you get all kinds of technical blather about the restrictive clause which that is of no use to me at all. That is all fine and good, and very interesting if there is something seriously wrong with you, I'm entirely sure. As for me, I use a simple rule I learned a long time ago. Well, maybe it's not really a RULE; it's more like a SUGGESTION. Which That Which I like a lot better, because I hate words bossing me around. And, what's really great about this suggestion is that it's useful in real life, too. In fact, it can solve all sorts of ungrammar-related problems. Are you ready? Here it is:

If 'that' works, use it. And here's some real life dilemmas it can resolve for you:

Q. Should I wash away my super crappy day with a bottle of wine?
A. If that works, use it!

Q. Is it okay to let my 6 year old have his pacifier to shut his gob?
A. If that works, use it!

See how handy that is? Try it yourself! Who knew grammar could be so helpful?

Carnage

This may come as an unpleasant surprise to some of you, but the military here thinks they have some important business to attend to. Some boring blah blah blah about communists and missiles and dictators, oh my!

The military personnel (aka 'dads') have been working hard leaving early and coming home late because more blah, blah, blah. This leaves the rest of us (otherwise known as 'moms' or 'spouses') suffering from battle fatigue, sleep deprivation and/or PTSD as we pay the bills, get the kids to bed and suck down bottles of wine take out the recycling alone AGAIN.

Hangovers Motherhood Lack of sleep causes all sorts of bad decisions, poor judgment and sloppy execution. It's why Lightning McQueen got into that whole Radiator Springs debacle, why Marge Simpson didn't stop having kids after Bart, why Van Halen hired Sammy Hagar, and why my children eat off the floor, among numerous other catastrophes and questionable practices.

Today, it caused carnage in the elevator. I still don't know what actually happened. Exhausted, I was wheeling the stroller into an elevator full of people. The stroller was full of assorted toys, shoes, food, sippy cups, and an onion plant in a cup full of dirt mixed with diluted pee, and the boys were on foot. They were behaving pretty well, maybe about like halfway trained circus bears: wildly unpredictable but docile in appearance to the casual observer. I would have waited for an empty elevator but they had already run in ahead of me as soon it arrived. After successfully shoving aside six or eight innocent victims with my behemoth orange double stroller, I turned around to push the button for our floor. When I turned back, Shane was on the floor screaming.

The high-pitched shrieking and disapproving looks were, of course, nothing new to me, but the blood spurting out of his mouth was a little unexpected. I sopped it up with my shoulder, which happened to be foolishly covered up with a brand new white shirt and toted him home chanting my new mantra: 'Zin-fan-del, Zin-fan-del, Zin-fan-del'.

Before my mother freaks out, let me assure you he seems to be fine. He does have nice gash in his upper gum but it stopped bleeding pretty quickly, right after my shirt was ruined. I gave him a sea-lion sized dose of motrin and tossed him and Weston in the tub with a couple of cans of shaving cream. Right now he is sitting on the couch watching Bob the Builder with his hand down his pajama pants, so I guess all is well. For now.