The painting is finished!

Wow, what a busy week! I don’t know where the time goes this time of year. I am so anxious for spring to be here, I can hardly stand it. The weather was so nice last week and this week has been cold and snowy. We’ve not been able to walk much because of the wind. Yesterday, we took the kids out at 45 degrees and by the time we were walking home, it was 30 and snowing!

Eden went to daycare two days this week so that we could finish the house painting project. Phase four was quite an undertaking, but we are so pleased with the results. I hope the slideshow of pictures tells our story well. I love the stripes!

On Monday, I went back to Weight Watchers as soon as Al got home from work. Hesitant to step on the scale, I slipped my shoes off (every little bit helps!) and I had lost 2.8 pounds! I was estatic and treated myself to ice cream that very night.

Al had a meeting in Harrison on Tuesday, which is 100 miles away, so it was a long day for everybody. I had a fund-raiser meeting that night, so as he was coming home, I was going out the door once again. The fire department is going to host several meals the first week of April, due to the World’s Biggest Auction which is going to be held here in Bridgeport that week. More on that later.

Wednesday was much of the same, with Chiro appointments for Daddy and baby in the morning, then church in the afternoon and evening. It was 7^th-8^th grade questioning night after service, so I took the kids to another fund-raiser meeting for the fire department and then home to bed. Lars still was not feeling well and cried himself to sleep in a fellow volunteer’s arms. Al got home shortly after we did.

Thursday, Daddy and Baby had a doctor’s appointment at the clinic. They both came home with antibiotics and cough syrup, due to double ear infections, sinus infections and general ‘icky-ness’. Lars is croupy, so he got some steroids, as well. Now, trying to get him to swallow it is another illness all it’s own.

Friday morning, Al and I were relaxing in bed with Lars, enjoying Eden’s decision to sleep in. Then the pager went off and it turned out to be a long morning. I got back just in time to go get my hair cut. After lunch, Al and I managed to get most of the house back together and pictures hung on the wall. Mark and Laura stopped by with the girls just as we were finishing putting the last frame on the wall. Their girls wore Eden out, so bedtime was a breeze for me.

Our big excitement for the week was that Al’s new camera came. It’s a Canon Eos Rebel digital and it cost as much as my first car. He purchased it with the money he got from selling his ’78. It arrived yesterday and already, it’s got nearly 90 photos on the card! It’s been fun to play with.

Sunday morning (it’s Confirmation Sunday, mind you) during the sermon, after much coaxing, Lars fell asleep on the floor. Eden looked up at her daddy in the pulpit and yelled, “Daddy, be quiet! Lars sleeping!” There was much laughter in and around our pew. Then, I left him on the floor to go up to communion. While I was gone, Eden pulled his pacifier out of his mouth and he woke up. I was not happy. Somehow, we made it to the end of service without getting kicked out.

If you watch the slideshow, this will make more sense. Some of our living room re-do includes the two blue chairs, the kitchen cabinet (which is an old wardrobe Al remade for me) which will have doors after Easter, as well as the artwork above the piano, the fall picture above the new chair and the “umbrella-scape” art. Keep in mind all of the walls were white upstairs, except in the bathroom and bedrooms. We started with the orange-y color (which, honestly, did not photograph well. It’s much better in real life), then went to the yellow-cream color in the stairwell, then the brown in the kitchen, and finally the green in the living room. Two of the walls are striped.

On a final note, I asked Al to touch up the copper wire colored paint along the railing just before we cleaned up for the night. It was nearly 10 p.m. and maybe that should have been my first clue to just forget it and go to bed. As I was in the kitchen putting paint supplies away, I heard a loud crash. I looked in the stairwell and Al was standing there painting, the look on his face unchanged. I said, “That didn’t sound good” and without looking away from his painting, he said, “No. No, not good at all. Pretty bad, actually.” I peered down the steps and concurred with him. “Not good at all.” An hour later, I was still cleaning the same spot….

Thus concludes our upstairs re-do.