Remodeling Blues

The renovations continue.

We're one month into the "extreme home makeover" at the new house...I am hoping that means we're one month closer to getting to move in - but I'm not sure at this point. I do know that Hubby and I are one month closer to a divorce. Just kidding. But something about building or renovating a house will do that to a marriage.

We do have paint on the walls...we have new kitchen cabinets...we have new granite countertops...we have new lighting fixtures...we have new fireplaces...BUT...the list of what remains to be done is still very, very long. It's, unfortunately, longer than the list of what has been completed. That's depressing.

We do have numerous contractors and workmen and decorators and painters trooping in and trooping out of the house each day. That's fun.

We also have numerous bills and receipts and invoices showing up daily. That's not fun.

What we don't have is patience. At least, I don't have it. But - I'm learning. I'm breathing in...and breathing out. And taking it one day at a time. It will all happen when it's supposed to - and one of these days, we'll have the "Reveal" party/open house, where we shout, "Move that bus!!!" and we'll be settled. Or at least, I will be. I'm not sure at this point if Hubby will still be in the picture. I may be living in the new house all by myself.

Kidding.

Enjoy the day today - and remember to breathe.

Knives Hurt

We bought some new knives the other day.

Now, I realize that isn't exciting for most people. But the new knives have certainly caused a lot of excitement in our house.

Our old knives were really....old. And dull. Pretty useless, actually. Which is why we invested - and I do mean, invested (who knew knives were so expensive??!! Yikes!!) in a new set of knives.

We've had them exactly one week.

The 2nd day of ownership, I was supposed to be slicing butter - but ended up slicing my left index finger instead. That hurt. And it totally freaked out my daughter who was working in the kitchen with me. So much for that stick of butter. And so much for my finger. It's okay - not a deep wound - but it sure hurt.

Last Friday night, my oldest son decided to pick up one of the knives and use it to slice open the pizza delivery box. Big mistake. Instead of slicing the box, he sliced - you guessed it - his left index finger. Only his wound is a little deeper - it's just shy of needing stitches.

I guess I forgot to warn the kids on how sharp the new knives are.

And these knives are getting more expensive by the day - we're having to stock up on bandaids and Neosporin. And possibly a future visit to the emergency room.

Peace.

Sleepover Insanity

My daughter celebrated her 10th birthday awhile back.

In a moment of profound weakness - or stupidity - I agreed to her hosting a sleepover at our house for half a dozen or so 4th-grade girls.

The girls show up Friday evening, and I hand them brand-new, beautiful colored chalk and direct them outside to the driveway, imagining to myself that they will spend hours of delightful, artistic, harmonious bliss, creating beautiful masterpieces of art that can be shared with the entire neighborhood.

Much to my dismay, the girls all come back running into the house in 2.36 minutes flat - announcing they are done with sidewalk art - and 5 pairs of eyeballs stare at me, waiting for the next activity. I take a peek outside and instead of Renoir, Monet or even Picasso-like masterpieces, I see a few scribbled phrases such as, "Sara is a dork" and "Brandon is a poop-head." Okay - so much for art - obviously these girls are into gym, right?

I send the girls to the backyard to the jungle gym, where they each hop on the swingset - swing up - swing down - hop off - and come running back to the house, announcing they are "bored" and "now what?!" I firmly tell them they must spend at least 5 minutes on the swing set - no exceptions - and so off they march, looking as if I've sent them into battle or something. Okay - they're not into gym, either.

At the end of the 5 minute purgatory spent on the swing set, the pizza man arrives (thank you, Jesus!) - and I discover what the girls ARE into - food. I have never seen two large cheese pizzas disappear so fast - I had to hold my teenage boys back or else, they, too, would have been snarfed in the ensuing madness of pizza and soda pop. Dinner lasted all of 4.1 minutes.

I bring out the cake and ice cream, and we spend 7.2 seconds singing the "Happy Birthday" song - off-key, of course - and I realize the girls aren't so much into music, either. My ears are still sore.

Cake and ice cream disappear in record time, and so I pop some popcorn. The popcorn is consumed in less time than it took to pop in the microwave.

It is now time to put the girls in the mini-van and take them to the show, where we're going to watch "Ponyo", a new Disney release. My hubby is the designated driver, and he glares at me in the front seat as we wait for five girls to figure out how to buckle themselves in - all squealing, laughing, giggling, touching, punching and snorting. If looks could kill, my hubby would have sent me to the grave right then and there. "You owe me", he whispers as we drive to the theater with our precious cargo.

At the theater, we stand in the concession line for what seems like 32 minutes as each girl makes up her mind of what flavor of icee to drink (geez - there's only 2 flavors - red or blue!!! How hard IS it to make a decision??!! Pick one, already!) and what candy to choose from (okay, I understand the indecision here - there's like, 50 flavors of candy in the case.) I smile weakly at the people glaring at us from behind, and mouth a silent apology - and then say, "Sleep over" - and the looks from the patrons turn from anger to pure sympathy and pity. I think I even heard someone say, "We're so sorry."

After (finally) getting our food, the girls skip into the theater and we all sit down and watch what I have to honestly say (sorry, Disney) is the worst movie that I have seen in....say....my life. Seriously. Ninety minutes of pure torture for hubby and me - but the girls sit there, transfixed, munching their candy and slurping their icees. Life is good in their world.

When the credits roll, I roll my eyeballs back from the inside of my head and round the girls up to head home. It is now 10:30 pm - time for bed.

I carefully lay out everyone's sleeping bags and pillows as the girls change into their pajamas and brush their teeth. I sweetly tell them that they can chit-chat until 11:00 pm and then it will be lights off. The girls all smile at me, so angelically - and I pat myself on the back for being such a good manager of all things sleep-over. The girls lay in their bags, talking and laughing and giggling - and life is good. At 11:00 pm, I go in and turn the light off.

A few seconds of blessed quiet - and then the gates of hell opened; each girl became possessed by an evil demon spirit which took over their sweet, innocent bodies- pillows were flying, girls were screaming and laughing, feathers were floating, and hubby and I looked at each other in shock. We would take turns that evening, going into the hell-hole, demanding peace and quiet and ordering the girls to bed. Silence would then ensue for about 2 minutes and then the decibel level would begin climbing, all over again - reaching eardrum shattering levels.

At one point - it may have been 1:20 in the morning, I walked in right when one of the little demons said, "Let's pull an all-nighter." I said, "Let's not." And gave them a look of pure determination and pure "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore - go to bed NOW!!!!!"

The girls finally drifted off around 4:30 a.m.

At 8:00 a.m., I walked in the room - flipping on lights - cheerfully announcing, "Rise and shine! Your parents will be here, soon!" The girls groaned - and I smiled, gleefully. They had their fun the night before - now it was my turn. What sadistic pleasure I took in waking those girls up that morning - am I horrible?!

As the parents arrived to take the little demons - I mean girls - home, hubby and I collapsed on the sofa. Daughter came skipping up and said, "That was fun! Can we do another sleepover next weekend?"

I will leave it up to your imagination, dear readers, on what our response was.

Peace.

Wednesday, Aug. 5th: Wet & Wild in Williamsburg

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Our adventure is starting to wind down - but we still have one more stop: today, we are heading to Williamsburg, VA.

But first - we hop on our bus and head over to the White House for a photo op.

Now, this is the photo that everyone has - it's on the world news every night, and on every post card:

But THIS is the photo I like:

Why? Because to me, it clearly demonstrates what's so great about our country - the right of free speech. There's not too many other places in the world that allows its citizens the freedom to set up right outside the president's home and protest. Awesome.

I don't think President Obama is even home today - I had heard he's heading to Indiana to give a speech. But that's okay.

After our photo op, we climb back on the bus and head to the National Zoo.

We head directly to the pandas - which are conveniently close to the entrance of the zoo. The pandas look a little bored - a little sleepy - not too exciting - so we take our photo and then we're off to see other sights.

The elephant is going to get a bath at 10:30, so we head over to the elephant house and get front row seats for the big event.

We don't have a lot of time to spend at the Zoo, unfortunately, so we have to rush around to see everything that we can. We enjoyed watching the orangutans walking over our heads on the "O" Line - just don't stand underneath one or you might get a surprise "shower." Ew.

We hop back on the bus for our 2-hour ride to Williamsburg. The ride goes quickly, as the movie, "National Treasure 2" is playing on the DVD screen on the bus.

We arrive at the Great Wolf Lodge around 4:00 pm and head to our room. Our luggage arrives a minute later, so we hop into our swim suits and hit the water park. Duh. What else would you do while staying at the Great Wolf Lodge?

I have to admit - I love the Great Wolf Lodge. We have one close to home, and we've taken the kids there for the weekend several times. I especially love the "fort" - which has all kinds of booby traps that are a whole lot of fun. I spend about five hours that afternoon/evening dumping a bucket of water over unsuspecting "victims" as they climb through the fort. Aren't I nice?!

At 5:30 pm, Disney hosts a pizza party in the water park for us, which is nice that we don't even have to change. It's actually pretty good pizza! (or I had worked up an appetite dumping water on people....?)

About 9:00 pm, daughter finds me and says she's tired - time to head back up to the room. A nice hot shower and then it's time for bed. One more day left of our adventure.

Peace.

Tuesday, August 4th: Proudly We Fail (Yes, Fail)

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Another day in our Disney adventure - and today's theme is "Proudly We Hail."

After a bright and early beginning, we load up on the rock-star bus and head to Mount Vernon - the home of George Washington.

We begin at the Ford Orientation Center - where all visits to Mount Vernon begin - and we watch an 18-minute action adventure film which re-introduces the young, heroic Washington who became the "Father of His Country." It was a pretty cool film - I was impressed.

We also saw “Mount Vernon in Miniature” – a one-twelfth scale exact "dollhouse" replica of the mansion with 22 rooms containing hundreds of tiny objects including oil paintings, china, books, and more than 100 tables and chairs. Mikayla and I could have spent hours looking at the dollhouse – it’s so authentic that the doorknobs even turn. What is it about dollhouses that are so fascinating?

We then went on the Mansion Tour by walking over to the actual house.

They let so many people in at a time and you visit the estate – room by room – where each room has a tour guide explaining what you’re seeing. Washington's estate had an incredible view of the Potomac River. I didn’t realize it was such a large estate – wow. And I loved the view of the River - I could have plopped down in a rocking chair and spent all day there.

They don't allow photos inside the actual estate - too many antiques and stuff there - but they do allow photos in the detached kitchen.

There are many outbuildings on the estate to see – but it was hot and it was getting close to lunch. Yes, we're wimps - and we're hungry wimps at that - so no walk in the hot sun on an empty stomach.

We had lunch at The Mount Vernon Inn; “Caroline”, a black “slave”, came in and sang to us as we were being seated. She then went into a speech about the death of Washington – she was one of the few people in the room when he died. He died in his master bedroom on Dec. 14, 1799, and is buried at Mount Vernon. We didn't walk to his tomb because it was hot. Oh, did I mention that already?

For lunch, I had the Virginia ham and stuffing with peanuts. It was pretty good. I was enjoying my apple pie for dessert when Anna dropped her water glass – shattering it – and glass & cold iced tea showered over the table. Yikes! Hubby got most of the tea in his lap – I got a plateful and lapful of glass. There went my appetite. We spend the next few minutes cleaning up shattered glass and tea. Our group seems to attract disaster during lunch.

After lunch, we had 2 hours to explore on our own. Because of the extreme heat, most of us opted for the Museum and Education Center. This offered a memorable experience that spans Washington's lifetime. The Museum introduces Washington’s world with a rich and comprehensive collection of objects in a state-of-the-art facility. The Education Center was fantastic – it presents a multimedia experience that illuminates the detailed story of Washington’s life. We watched a film where it snowed on us – during the crossing of the Delaware. Wonderful exhibit.

At 2:00 pm, we load up in the bus and then head over to the Capitol for a group photo op on the West lawn of the building.

Afterwards, we all split up – we head to the East entrance of the Capital and stand in a long line to be allowed in to go through security. We go through security and are then directed inside the building to the bottom floor to get into another long line to get tour tickets. It's 3:23 pm in the afternoon; we are 10 people away from the front of the line when an announcement is made that no more tickets will be distributed for the day. They do not distribute any more tickets after 3:20 pm. Are you kidding me??! I thought Hubby was going to have a coronary. So, we fail in our quest to get inside the Capitol building and see our Congressmen at work.

We are allowed to visit the Exhibition Hall – a pretty good museum/display of the Congress building. We spend about 90 minutes here – but are still disappointed we didn't have a tour. Oh well. We did get a photo of us outside. Woo hoo.

We leave – walk out to the East side – debating if we should walk back to the hotel (it's hot!) or ride a cab. And a cab pulls up. God is good. We take the cab back to the hotel – about $8.50 fare. After relaxing for awhile and cleaning up, we walk to dinner – the Daily Grille – about 2 blocks away. Food is pricey and just average. I have a filet mignon that is $31 and is not all that good. Oh well.

After dinner we are walking back and Mikayla trips on her flip flops and goes sprawling on the street – right in an intersection. She gets a pretty good scrape on her hip – and she’s distraught. More embarrassed than hurt. We get her back to the hotel and get ice and manage to soothe the pride - which I think is hurt worse than the hip.

Spend the evening relaxing and packing. Tomorrow is another busy day and this heat and humidity and walking is taking a toll.

Peace.