Why did I push the first domino?

When we moved into our house, we remodeled the office and upstairs bathroom and created two bathrooms and a closet in the same space. I chose some colors for the bathroom, but was so tired of painting after having done the entire house, so I decided I'd wait a little while before I repainted the master bathroom. 

A little while was almost two years. Memorial Day weekend 2009 I painted the bathroom. I was so proud of myself for accomplishing it. 

However, nearly two years after choosing and mixing the colors, I wasn't as in love with my blue combo as I had been when I first chose it. There were several spots along the ceiling that I had missed the tape completely and got blue all over. I kept meaning to go back and fix it. I never did. 

Two years ago, for my birthday, my friend Kathy said she would help me decorate my bathroom. We talked about it again in the fall, and I chose a color. This time I chose a very bold green. basically the color of Kermit the Frog. I mixed my gallon of paint the day before Thanksgiving in 2011. I took my paint and painting supplies home, and was going to get started in a few days....

Well, Thanksgiving was kind of busy, and then it was the beginning of the Christmas season. Then January came and things were pretty crazy in our household. And I kept thinking that I would paint on my next day off. Then came the end of January and the discovery that I was pregnant. I was determined to not do anything that would endanger our unborn baby, so I decided to wait to paint. 

Finally, this last week I found myself possessed with a certain amount of energy and, well, ok, I was angry. I don't even remember what I was angry about now, but I was fairly pissed and decided to take it out on the bathroom. I started masking everything off and taking down towel bars. 

Once I had begun, I had to continue. Much like a Spanish conquistador would burn the ships after the last man was on land, I knew once I started, there was no going back. I should have started with the ceiling and fixed all my blue screw ups from 4 years ago, but I could have still left the walls blue if I just fixed the ceiling. So instead I started painting the walls green. I also decided to paint the fake oak medicine cabinet a dark brown, and I was going to replace my towel bars, rings, and toilet paper holder with new oil rubbed bronze ones. Then a spark of genius flared in my addled brain... (Ok, I was being cheap) and I decided to spray paint the oak hardware with an oil rubbed bronze spray paint instead. 

I painted the walls, I painted the medicine cabinet, I painted the light fixture, I painted the towel hardware. I fixed the ceiling. 

I stood back and looked at my handiwork. I had decided to only paint the medicine cabinet and light fixture to get rid of some of the oak in there. Then I saw the oak trim on top of the vanity, and the oak vanity cabinet and I thought that maybe I should paint them the same dark brown.  But then when I looked at that, I realized that the vanity cabinet joins right up to the oak trim that runs the entire baseboard of the bathroom, and around the doors, and around the window, and the window sill. And it might look weird if I painted the cabinet and left the trim stained. But I have a hard time painting over stained wood trim. It's one thing to paint the pre-primed mdf trim, it's composite anyway and it is meant to be painted. But to have perfectly good hemlock or oak trim, and cover it with paint? That's just wrong to me. 

So now I'm in a pickle... I'm considering staining the trim darker, or just saying heck with it and living with the oak and calling it good. I lived with a sloppily painted blue bathroom for 4 years, I guess I can make it a few weeks while I decide what to do.

A few weeks ago, I told Matt that I wanted a new kitchen sink for my birthday (in August). He said he'd been thinking about redoing our countertops with the Rustoleum Countertop Transformations. I thought that sounded good, as long as I got my new sink. Then he said that he was thinking about staining the kitchen cabinets darker. 

My kitchen and dining room walls are a dark brownish-red, and if we put in dark countertops, and darker cabinets, then my dark walls would be too much, so I would have to paint the kitchen. If I paint the kitchen, I have to paint the dining room too. And if I go with with a lighter color, I have to make sure it goes with the tv room color because it joins up to it. Or I have to paint the kitchen and dining room the same color as the rest of the downstairs, which seems kind of blah... 

Oy vey!!! Is there such a thing as a home improvement project that DOESN'T snowball into something bigger and more difficult??

Long time, no posts...

I just realized that it has been 5 months since I wrote a blog post.  It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about, but more that there hasn't been the uninterrupted time to do so, and then by the time that I can sit down and start typing, the fully composed blog-post that I had in my head the night before is completely gone.  There have been quite a few of those lately.

Last Sunday was Mother's Day.  It was my first Mother's Day, unless you count the year before when I was pregnant... some people do, some people don't.  I treated myself to a few hours out of the house alone for Mother's Day.  Andrew stayed home with Daddy, and I went and got a pedicure with my mom, and then went and got a few supplies for home and then it was back home where I was hoping to go out to dinner. I was hoping that my husband was feeling well enough to go out, our little carrier monkey had brought down the entire house with his cold... seriously, even Lucie had been sneezing and sleeping more than usual.  Just when I thought that we'd actually make it out the door, I went to change Andrew and realized he was warm, I checked and sure enough he had a fever. So my first Mother's Day evening was spent being a Mommy.  Taking care of my under the weather baby boy, and making dinner.  And I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

I waited for so many years to become a mommy. I started to think it was not meant to happen for me. As a result, I take joy in motherhood.  Not just the Hallmark moments when my son is freshly bathed and smelling sweet, and snuggled up to me nursing contentedly, but all the moments.  Like when I try to take his temperature and he poops on me. Or when he seems to grow 6 more arms and is doing his best to grab every remote control and power cord in the room.  Or when I want desperately to just go to bed and sleep, and he decides that 3:47 am is the PERFECT time to be wide awake and he just had to share that moment with me.  Let's face it, how often do those Hallmark moments really happen?  Especially since in our house bath time only comes around about once a week.  The pooping on me thing happens far more often than the sweet smelling snuggling time happens.

No matter how frustrated I may become, or how fussy he can get, there is not a day that goes by that I don't look at him and thank God for allowing me to be his mommy, for sending that precious baby boy into my life.   Almost every night I fall asleep praying, thanking God for my family.  For bringing my husband safely home that night, for my beautiful son, for our home, for our goofy (and bed-hogging) pup... It really helps my attitude and my outlook on life to remember how richly blessed I am when instead I want to focus on petty little things, and things or people that make me angry, or bug me.  Some days my attitude is so terrible, and then I see Andrew's smile and it puts my whole world right again.