Every now and then, I like to ask my kids what they want to be when they grow up. Tonight at dinner, I proposed the question to Kaleb. He's seven.
Kaleb: "I want to be a dad."
Kurtis: "You can be a dad, but what do you want to do for your work?"
Kaleb: "I want to be a babysitter!"
Kurtis: "Really?"
Kaleb: "Yes! I want to do what Mom does."
Me: "What does Mom do all day?"
Kaleb: "She watches the girls and watches Bones all day! And Dora!"
Me: "No, I don't watch Dora. The girls watch Dora. You have to make them lunch, too."
Kaleb: "Okay!"
Me: "And change their diapers."
Kaleb: "I don't care! I just want to play with babies all day!"
Me: "When you are dating and you have a girlfriend, tell her you want to be a stay-at-home dad, and see what she says."
Kaleb: "Okay."
He looked so happy at the thought of playing with babies all day long. It was the cutest thing ever! :) I'm so glad I've raised my children to be so progressive and aren't looking for gender specific jobs. It's great. Riley told me he wants to be an author. He even used that word. "I want to be an author." Zach has reconsidered the Army, I guess. At least, he said he doesn't know what he wants to be this time I asked him. I told him that was fine. He has a lot of choices, and doesn't need to worry about it just yet.
I was looking at the date of the last blog post and I thought, "Fudge Popsicles. I need to blog more." I mean, really. It's been ten days! How can I expect you to wait so long for an update in my fascinating life?
Because my life really isn't that fascinating and every time I blog, somebody seems to tell me I am whining. Perhaps you need to change the voice in your head when you read my blog. I don't whine. I'm too sarcastic for that. Whining is for six-year-olds. I'd rather you read it with a snarky voice, or a pretend happy voice. Yeah. Go with the happy voice. It's much more fun.
So I would like to blog that I have new floors in the kitchen and front room of my house. I really would like to post pictures of the finished project. So badly. So very, very badly. But unfortunately, I can't. The last time I saw the floor guy was on Wednesday. He stayed until six and finished the dining area and where the fridge goes, but the front room closet isn't finished, the pantry isn't finished and the area by the kitchen sink and under the dishwasher isn't finished. Why? Because it is pointless for him to come back and do that little piece of floor when the stair nose was never ordered. They guy who does that forgot to order it. He called me Friday and told me it should be in on Wednesday. At the same time that he was explaining this to me, one of Kaleb's friends rang the doorbell. I just can't carry on two conversations at once, so I can't remember if he said they would come finish my floors on Wednesday or Thursday. Yay. Three months ago (on Wednesday), exactly is when my kitchen flooded. Three months I have lived with an unfinished floor. Three months I have tried to cram three rooms worth of stuff into my living room and what didn't fit in there got put in the garage. Two months into those three months, Kaleb started tripping on the area in the kitchen that was unlevel. I thought it was funny, and little bit weird. But you have to hold in laughter when your kid gets hurt. It's not funny. But it is funny. It's so very funny!
When I asked the floor guy if he was going to put the base boards back on my walls, he told me he wasn't told to. Wasn't told to? I was under the impression that I was doing the demolition and that they were doing the reconstruction. I had a vision of me punching something. I think I may need to get me one of these:
or maybe this one would be better:
Either one would give me something to hit once in awhile.
Have you ever felt like time is this giant rocket that you've been strapped to and there is a certain date that you are being hurtled towards, but you can't slow it down even just a little bit, so that when you get to that date, you have a smooth landing on it? That's what happened with Kurtis' birthday. I didn't forget it, it just came at me like a ton of bricks and before I knew it, it was upon us. I kept asking him what he wanted for his birthday. He wouldn't give me a straight answer. That makes it hard. He wants a Google TV or a TV for our bedroom. We don't have cable, so in order for us to have a TV that lets us watch Netflix on it, we need a wi-fi connection. Thus, the Google TV. But we went to look at the other TVs at Target any way on Wednesday night. On the way there, I asked him what he wanted for his cake. "Oh, crap! You're cake! We don't have a cake mix yet." So we had to get one of those. He wanted cupcakes. I suggested we just go buy half a dozen somewhere, but no. He wanted me to make them. Sigh. The box mix makes two dozen. Sometimes, I think my husband is trying to sabotage my weight loss goals. Even if it is subconscious. The other way to get wi-fi upstairs in our room is with another xbox. When we added up the cost of a new xbox, and a 32 inch TV, it was about the same as the cost of a Google TV, so we might as well just get that. We decided to not do it.
Yesterday was Kurtis' birthday. I had no present for him, so I forgot to get his card ready. Then Riley came home saying his stomache hurt for the second day in a row. Yay. That's just what we need. Kurtis wanted to go to Outback with me for his birthday. We fed Riley (well, all of the kids) and he said he was feeling better, and left them saying that if he throws up, they should call us.
After dinner, we went to Barns & Noble. It's pretty much our favorite store. He ended up getting a few books for his presents, but I couldn't help but feel this birthday was a total fail. He is now 38. I told him that was weird. It's weird to think that in two years he will be forty. It's a bit surreal.
These are the cupcakes I made. Apparently, I put too much batter in the cups because according to the high altitude directions, I should have gotten 36 cupcakes. I only got 21.
My boys.
I couldn't find our candles. Another fail. But after we sang to him, he pretended to blow out the candles any way. He's such a good sport. :)
After such a late night on Tuesday, I slept in yesterday. A little longer than I intended. I had things I wanted to do! I worked out even though it wouldn't have taken me so long to get ready for the day if I didn't. I'm trying to loose weight. In fact, I've even given up candy. Saying that makes me so sad inside for some reason. I just can't have it. But this post isn't about that.
After getting ready for the day, it was about 12:30. I think a little tiny bit later than that. Like 12:37 or something weird. It's not important. That's when I started the deconstruction of my kitchen floor. It was a lot easier to take that floor apart than the front room. Until I got to the bay window. Apparently, the floor the previous owners put in didn't quite reach the wall, so they used this rubbery caulking that was brown to fill in the crack. That was a big huge pain to try to cut through. First, I took off the baseboards. I broke one. The one by our railing. Apparently when they put the railing in the house, they put the baseboard on first. I thought it was cut around the bottom of the railing, but I was wrong, and so we will probably have to change the railing (something that was on my list of things to do someday) sooner than later. Ah, well. On project leads to another seems to be the rule in this renovation. Yippee! I also ruined the thinger majig that is at the top of the stairs that helps create a seamless look between the laminate and the carpet on the stairs. Kurtis said that I shouldn't worry about it. Let the professionals figure it out. Sigh. I just wanted them to think I was awesome! Is that too much to ask? It probably doesn't matter. They will just assume my husband did all the work. Ha! Yeah right. Like he would do that. I kept asking him to help me take care of the messes in the kitchen and he would say, "Yeah. We need to do that." and go do something else. Like play computer games. To his credit, though. While I was at the concert last night, he and the boys did help move the chairs and made room in the living room for the kitchen table. Then he and I moved it last night. It was heavy! P.S. Nobody is allowed to call my husband lazy, except me. It's my right as a wife. But he's not lazy, so back off.
I'm just so very excited that this part is almost done! I'm so excited to have my kitchen floor repaired. Who knows. Maybe I will throw a floor party. Probably not. I'm tired. Maybe when I have the front room all painted and decorated the way I want it. That will be way more awesome to show off. :D
Here are the before and after shots:
This picture is really dark, but you can at least still see the floor.
Another before shot.
Another angle.
And after! I worked hard. Well, maybe not that hard because this time it didn't seem quite so strenuous, and half of it had already been done when they were drying the place out.
When Kaleb got home, he said, "Woah!! Did they come work on the floor today?"
"No, honey. I did it." "What? You took out the floor? You're awesome!"
Then he said, "I like this floor! We should keep this floor!"
"No! This floor is awful! Look at all those stains on it!" "Oh. Alright," he replied with his head hanging low and a downtrodden look on his face. Too funny! Like I would let him pick the floor in my house! :D
The pile of laminate! That stuff is heavier than you think it will be.
Kurtis came home from work early yesterday. When he got home, and the girls had been picked up by their momma, I got in the car and drove downtown. I met up with my sister Emily, and her friends Samantha and Vincent. Vincent is my friend, too. He was the sound guy during the filming of Paradox Season 1. Unfortunately, he won't be our sound guy next season. Sadness. But he on to bigger and better things that involve actually getting paid.
As I left my home, it had begun to snow, and by the time I got downtown, it was snowing harder. Not a lot of snow, but it made me cold, and wet. I even curled my hair, and got all dolled up for the evening, but alas. What was the point? I finally found my sister parked like two cars down from me across the street from The Complex. That's funny because I ran across the street to try to find her waiting in line with the rest of the concert goers. I think it probably took like two minutes to find her, but it felt like five.
When they opened the doors, we ran to get in line. We got right up to the front of the stage and hung out. I swear we waited for an hour before the first act came on. His name was Joel Pack. I loved him. He told us he had gotten a call three hours before the start of the show to come down and play for us. Wow. What would that be like? Well, that would be freaking awesome. That's for sure. Here's a sample of his music:
He didn't have a beard last night, and (not that my opinion matters to him) I liked his look better without the beard. He's cute.
Joel played for us for half an hour. He also told us he's coming out with an album in June. I think he said June, so support your local artist and pick it up! :)
After Joel, Andrew Allen came out and crooned for us. I didn't know who he was, but apparently, I had heard one of his songs while I was browsing through YouTube one night. He told us it was on a movie called Abduction. I never saw that movie, but he made fun of it a bit by saying that the main characters were being chased through a train, and the kept stopping to make out. Hee hee! Sounds like a really dumb movie. He's from Canada, and he's really skinny. Like my kids skinny. Here's his song:
This isn't the song from the movie. But I enjoyed that one as well. It's called Loving You Tonight, so check it out. I bought his cd, and he signed it for me after the concert. He's so gracious and kind to his fans. He took the time with each of them that they wanted before moving on to the next person. I can't help but love that about him.
Then it was the main event. Dia Frampton! If you watch The Voice, you know who she is. I don't, but she also used to be the lead vocalist in the band Meg & Dia. Emily's favorite band. It was fun to watch her play. Basically Dia Frampton is Meg & Dia, but now they just use Dia's name. I can tell that they love music, and they love to perform. All the acts last night were like that. I love watching people who love what they do. Their joy just radiates and you can't help but soak up a little bit of it. I left that concert feeling so happy. Next time they come around, I would highly recommend going. Here's one of Dia's songs:
Love this song!
We were right up by the stage, and Emily gave me her camera, so I took a bunch of pictures with it, but I don't have any copies yet. I bet she will post them on facebook soon, but I did take a few with my phone. The battery was almost dying, so I didn't take a lot. I wish I wouldn't be such a chicken and just bring mine!
My hand stamp!
Joel Pack
For Andrew Allen's finale, Dia and her band came up and banged some cow bells for percussion. It was funny. Then they told us it was his last day on tour with them. Dia got a little teary-eyed. It's hard to say goodbye to your friends.
Dia Frampton. She can sing, she can play the guitar, and the piano. So talented.
For their first encore, the invited some random guy out of the audience to come up. She and Meg (her sister) sang Flight of the Concords' song Most Beautiful Girlto him. They changed it the lyric to boy, though. It was funny. Then they sang The Broken Ones for the final song of the night.
I do laundry twice a week normally. It's not my favorite chore, but I don't find it anywhere near as horrible as I find cleaning boy-pee off the toilets. So I really don't mind doing the laundry for myself and my family. But we have a system, and if this system gets thrown out of whack for whatever reason, it makes it hard for me to want to serve my family. Thursday, I asked Riley to bring his laundry downstairs. He did not. I also asked Zach to bring his upstairs. He did not. No worries, I'll just go get their laundry. It's really not that big of a deal. Until I arrive in Zachary's room to get his clothes. Monday is my other laundry day. All went smoothly that day, and I even got it done in one day. Go me! All I ask is that my children put their laundry away. I even put Zachary's clean clothes in his laundry basket on my bed, so he can take it all down in one trip. But this time, when I went to get his clothes, I found that not only had he not put his clothes away, but some of his clean clothes were still in his laundry basket. Oh, it gets better. Earlier in the week, I noticed his full laundry basket that he had simply placed on his bed and said, "Zach. Put your clothes away, please." Maybe I didn't say please. I don't really remember, but my memory likes to make me look good. So rather than do what I asked him, he simply moved his laundry basket to the side of his bed where I wouldn't see it. Thus, I would assume that he had followed through on the task.
When I saw this, I said, "Oh, hell no! That does it. I am not doing laundry today!" And I didn't do laundry that day. But I did Skype my husband to tell him all about what Zach had done. His response: "I guess it's karmic justice for my behavior as a child."
Are you freaking kidding me? How is that karmic justice? "Your karmic justice is screwing me over!" I responded. Karmic justice should be something that only effects Kurtis, not craps all over me in the process! Apparently his idea of karmic justice is more like what happens when a chocolate fountain gets knocked over. We're at this amazing party and everybody is having a great time until the curious two-year-old gets too close to the chocolate fountain, and bam! Brown, chocolate goo all over the floor and the ceiling and pretty much everybody else in the room! But he was in the bathroom, and so he comes back in the room wondering why everybody is screaming. How is that justice?
I went to write this post yesterday, and found my pictures of the Blue and Gold. I was kind of bummed because this is what I really wanted to write about, but I just had to show off my western decorations that were so flippin' awesome! :D
Wednesday was my day off, so instead of spending it working out and catching up on the television shows I enjoy watching, I got down on my hands and knees and ripped apart my front room. We got our tax return and began the process of setting our plan of remodeling the kitchen and front room floors. I got up, worked out, and then I tore out the carpet, the carpet pad, the carpet tack strips and pulled off the baseboards. The hardest part for me was tearing up the tack strips. And it was hardest where the water damage had occurred. I thought that was a little weird. Also, taking the baseboard off was a bit of a challenge for me, too. I did it last, and I'm not used to manual labor. I'm actress people, not a construction worker! I was tired. But I took a break, and told my husband that I would probably need his help doing that. He didn't want me to use the crowbar. He was afraid I would damage the walls. He wanted me to just use the mud spatula (or whatever they are called). In the end, I just wanted to get it done. I knew that when he got home, I wouldn't want to work. We usually end up fighting when we work together on projects like this anyway. So I got back down on my hands and knees with my box cutter, my spatula, and the crow bar. All three tools were quite useful and any damage to the walls was minimal. The only injury I sustained was when I was pulling the tack strip up, I dropped the crowbar on my hand. It only hurt for a second, and I got just the tiniest cut on my right hand under my pinky. I almost got done before the boys got home, too. When they got home, I was working on the baseboards, and then Zach and Riley helped me with the clean up. I even made dinner that night. There are no bounds to what this woman can do. ;)
Why am I doing all this work when ServePro is going to put the floor in for us? They could do all the tear down as well, but the answer is simple: If we do the deconstruction ourselves, the work we do will go towards our deductible and we won't have to pay as much money. The idea of not having to pay an extra thousand dollars sounded pretty awesome to me.
My butt still hurts, and my muscles are still stiff. My arms aren't aching as much today. I wonder how many calories I burned.
I got started on tearing out the carpet before I realized I hadn't taken a before photo.
Front door area before the demo.
After I took out the carpet. Kurtis and I forgot to move the couch to the garage, so I just worked around it.
After taking out the tack strip, and the carpet in the front closet, and the laminate by the front door. What a beautiful mess. :)
The final after shot.
The final after shot of the front door area. I still need to take off the baseboards and the vent cover on that wall, but because I babysit little kids, I didn't want an open gaping hole in my front room. That just doesn't seem very safe nor very hypoallergenic.
No. No, I can't, but I can't believe I forgot to blog about this!
We had our Blue and Gold Banquet on Friday, February 24, 2012. I'm pretty sure it was a fun night with excellent food, a few games, and cookie decorating. I say that because I was only there long enough to see the awards and then I had to go help with an audition that my friend was having at my house, and he wanted me to read with the person who was auditioning. It took longer than I thought it would. I got back in time to help clean up, and even though I did leave my camera, Kurtis didn't take any pictures. But I took a few before I left though! We had a western theme!
The Wolves were in charge of decorations. My partner has a Cricut, and so I got a bunch of card stock, and we made cowboy hat place mats, and cowboy hat decorations. We had enough left over that I made some cowboy boots to throw on the tables, too. I also rounded up some cowboy boots and got those blue and gold flowers at the dollar store, and shoved them inside. Super easy.
There was a cowboy hat ring toss game. The boys loved it! :)
We also had a jail with a cut out wanted poster. Riley wasn't trying to look like a bad guy.
But Zach was.
I told Kaleb to look, "tough", and this is what he did. :D
The boys, gathered around the campfire.
Riley led the flag ceremony and the pledge.
The Weblos were in charge of the skit. Zach was the echo.
The first boy shouted, "Echo!" And Zach would repeat what they said until they got to last boy, who yelled, "Baloney!" And nothing happened. He shrugged and moved on.
Then the leader yells, "I'm the best den leader in the world!" And Zachary echos back: "Baloney!"
