Thirty

As of 7:11am I am THIRTY!

Enough Said.

Paint Whore

This is what I have been for the last two and half weeks. First the kitchen, see previous post. Now the bedroom. We decided on a light blue color. But to avoid tragedies like the kitchen I decide to put a coat of primer on. It’s like putting the thickest oil you can find on your walls. You drip it on the floor and it dries within seconds before you can wipe it. By the time you get down off your ladder or make shift ladder and start wiping it up it’s half dried and you just make a giant smear instead of a little drip. So you finally finish and try to clean up and thinking some HOT water will melt away the oil you realize that it just makes it easier to smear around and you make an even larger mess than what you started with, so you throw it all away and waste some more money at the hardware store buying all new supplies.

So today temper tantrum went like this:

Put on painting clothes and shoes, move furniture again and trip on it several times, recover plastic on all furniture, remove cats from room, trip on plastic covering bed and then recover bed, get out piece of shit vacuum and trip on cord, begin vacuuming and remove dog and cat from room, trip on vacuum, finish vacuuming, since you don’t like the color and you want it lighter you get out old white paint from basement and get even more pissy while you realize that there are no buckets or any other meaningless containers to mix paint in, returning the the site of paint hideousness the crappy screwdriver I have won’t open the old paint can, instead it’s just unrolling the rolled edge of metal on the lid, throwing said screwdriver on the floor making a huge gouge and almost getting a hernia trying to pick myself up off the floor because I am so sore and tired from moving furniture and moving chairs and reaching to corners that I am weak and it takes almost all my energy to get up, get new screwdriver after tripping on rug in hallway, on the way back to paint cans realize that there is a trail of paint because I stepped in a drip and stomped it through half the house and now have to clean it up, after mixing paints and getting it all over gloves realize there is a cat hiding underneath the plastic on the desk and you have to take off the gloves pick up cat and remove from room and slam the door, half the hair that was on the cat is now on your shirt and falls into paint cans, after removing hair and mixing paint the music is cranked up so no one hears my moans of anger and disgust and stomping and slamming, finally after an hour of painting I decide that instead of waiting until tomorrow and going to get MORE supplies from hardware store and having to move and vacuum everything again I will paint the third coat tonight, so I wrap up all painting supplies in Plastic wrap so I don’t have to clean and wash it.  Now I wait and try to calm myself before beginning again.

I just want it over. No more plastic, moving furniture, cleaning up, running to store for one or two more things. I want a day off without having to do anything.

The moral is that painting is never as simple as it sounds. The preparation, process, and cleanup always take three times as long as you thought and three times the energy. Painting, tripping, and hair cause extreme crabbiness.

Flaming Sword

Almost the entire past week has been spent prepping and painting the  god damn kitchen. Sugarmomma and I decided that my winter break project would be to paint. A year ago February we moved in and had asked the landlord about painting and she said as long as it can be painted over it’s fine, she’d reimburse us for the paint. We are finally getting to it. For the kitchen we chose Flaming Sword, which looks nothing like that in real life. Do you remember the crayola crayon color Brick Red? That’s what it reminds me of. I’m not sure if you can really paint over that but too late. Flaming sword is the biggest flaming bitch of a color to paint. No one ever really taught me how to paint. I just kind of learned by experience. I have never painted with a dark color and I of course didn’t do it right. I put on 3 coats and it still looked crappy, streaky, BRIGHT red instead of the deep color it was supposed to be. After a trip to the hardware store and a lesson in how to paint I put on the 4th coat. Thank god it looks much better because I was about to shit my pants with frustration and worry that it would never be ok ever again.

Oops I crapped my pants

Two days ago I crapped my pants. For real. I crapped my pants. I am almost 30 years old and I crapped my pants. I mean just a little, but still. I am horrified. That is all.

Someone please tell that it is ok and that I am not alone. Please help.

Tragic Memories

As we were making our way back from the holiday spent in Illinois with Sugarmomma’s family we traveled through a snowstorm. By about the time we got to the Wisconsin border it had finally let up and the rest of the car was sleeping or nodding off. Sugarmomma’s niece Cherry we call her, rode with us. Cherry is 14. Cherry wants to learn how to drive. She has driven us a couple times before and did very well considering it was her first and second time ever driving. She wanted to drive again but we didn’t think it was a good idea with the weather. It made me think of when I was young and wanted so badly to be able to drive.

 I remember being pretty young probably between 8 and 10 with vivid memories of my mom and her drinking problem. I remember studying intently how to drive. As I rode and my parents drove I would practice in my head which way to turn on the right blinker and left blinker, when to turn it on, when to take your foot off the gas, when to apply the brakes. I knew about how much to turn the wheel when making turns, and when to pull out from a stop sign. I was convinced that if my mom was too drunk to drive us home that I could do it. We spent a lot of time at her friends’ home which was probably only 3-4 miles from where we lived. After several hours of visiting and several drinks and me being the only sober one in the house besides the cats (which spent most of their time trying to hide and avoid me since they were the only things there I could play with), I was informed we’d be spending the night, again. I told my mom that if she wanted to go home that I could drive. Amongst all the laughter of the night, I got the biggest laugh with that line. Needless to say we spent the night and I did not drive us home. I mentioned it many times, but I never drove us home. I am convinced I would have drove us home perfectly. I’m an excellent driver.

19 Days

Until I turn THIRTY! I am horrified that I am turning 30. I don’t feel like I’ve lived that long. I remember being a kid and feeling like I would NEVER be that old. I will no longer be in my twenties. I will no longer be in my late twenties. I will be in my thirties.  Thirty years old, going to school full time, not working. Sugarmomma is taking me to see Loretta Lynn for my birthday. Actually Sugarmomma’s dad and his wife are taking all of us. He retired this year and moved to Illinois to his family’s homestead about 300 miles from us. They are going to travel up here and  we are all going to see Loretta Lynn. She happened to be in the area in concert on the night of my birthday. I can’t think of a finer way to spend my birthday than to listen to Lorreti croon.

P.S. I officially haven’t smoked in two years. I still can’t believe it. Thanks Sugarmomma. If it wasn’t for you threatening me with divorce I’d probably be smoking again. Love you.

I did it

For so long I had thought I was so stupid that if I went to college I would flunk out. To the contrary I managed to pass ALL my classes with three A’s and one B a GPA of 3.75. I am proud. I wish my family was.  It seems no one cares and when they do remember to ask about it it’s half heartedly to maintain conversational ordinance.  I think if I had gone to school right after high school I would be a below average student. I am glad I am returning as an adult to tackle higher education.

How was your holiday? I managed to make it through another holiday season. The hell of writing out christmas holiday cheerness to family and friends before they sent their own christmas cards, the shopping madness, the wrapping until 2am madness, the food, the family, the decorating, the cookies and fudge madness.

My mom and I made fudge every year, along with my grandma’s sugar cookies. Since she passed away I have not made a good batch of fudge. First, I couldn’t find the recipe which was supposed to be in the cook book I had of hers. Then I found out my brother and sister in law had it. I was living in Virginia at the time so they had to e-mail the recipe to me. The recipe is written on an old scrappy piece of paper and was slightly illegible. Trying to read my mom’s writing my sister in law and I tried making this fudge several different ways over the past four years. Neither one of us was able to make a decent batch of it. It turned out burnt, too runny, too thick, too greasy, or caramelly. After doing some recipe research and review of past trials I FINALLY made a decent batch of my mom’s fudge. I can’t tell you how exciting it was to have a bite of fudge that tasted like my mom’s! Thanks mom.

I got some nice gifts from Sugarmomma. She always gets me nice things. I tried to get her nice things but I didn’t get her what she wanted. I thought she wanted a video camera but she didn’t. I couldn’t get her the Sirius Stiletto portable satellite radio because it was sold out. I couldn’t find the Superman address book she wanted to replace the one that Nova peed on as a kitten, and I couldn’t find the bail n seal jar she wanted for her coffee. I at least got her some reindeer plates and Rudolph serving platter from Pottery Barn that she wanted. My dad however hit a new high with gift giving this year. He gave me a set of four solar yard lights and a stainless steel funnel. I don’t know why, I never said anything about them ever. Two weeks ago I talked to him on the phone and he mentioned that he gave money to my brother again and that he would give me $1,100 to me too to make it even. I don’t know what happened to that. Merry Christmas.