A Post for Future Christine

Red eyes: the curse of all blue-eyed people
the whole world over.

Sometimes I just need to post things my kids say and do so that Future Christine (who is stronger, leaner, and meaner than Present Christine) can remember and become the sort of unhelpful person who stops new moms and says, with a wistful sigh, "Enjoy it while you can. It goes by so fast."

I know this is pretty mean for Present Christine, but seriously? That's completely unhelpful. Please, stranger lady, go enjoy your children or grandchildren as they are right now. If you need a baby fix, volunteer at the hospital or church nursery. Or hold mine! I'm on the fourth one, I don't care about germs anymore. Have you had your shots? We're good then. I'll be back in thirty. I'll bring you a latte.

(You guys, let's all chuckle because we all know that Present Christine is pretty mean in her own right. I hate to meet Future Christine. She's such a jerk.)

I don't mind sharing that maybe 75% of the time our house feels like chaos. Now, that it IS chaos is just patently not true; it is just how it feels. The Professor and I are both rigid Type A individuals, so there is lots of order and routine in our home, and the kids are all happy hostages in our great takeover. Stockholm Syndrome kicked in long ago, especially for B. Everyone craves organization, everyone craves routine, and I still have to give a numbered list of stops we're visiting on errand day to avoid traumatic meltdowns. My kids are also Type A, is what I'm telling you. My house is clean. Our sh*t is in order.

But still: it often feels like chaos, and I know this is just because four children get in the way of ANY type of organization we think we have set in stone. There are shoes everywhere, even if they are stacked neatly by the front door in the designated spot. I still step on Legos, even if the boys are fabulous about keeping them only in their room. I'm still waiting on C to finish up her breakfast so we can get out the door on time, and this is mainly because C is the least-Type A of all of us and also: She is four. And in a perpetual dreamworld. It's a beautiful place full of unicorns and rainbows, but dangit, it makes me late. I am never late. I do not brake for unicorns.

So as you see, the chaos is mainly of our own devising, with a little bit of good old-fashioned rascally kid chaos mixed in for funsies. We go to bed happy but exhausted to our bones. My expression is permanently set at "Exasperated." Twice this morning I found myself saying, "Y'all. I cannot even." And then later I had to apologize for hollering at everyone. C asked me, "Why are you so angry this morning?"

Burn. Queen Mean Present Christine.

We had one of THOSE days over the weekend. Everyone was nuts. None of us had a chance to rest or just hang out together. Neither The Professor nor I got any one-on-one with each other or any of our children. We put our kids to bed snarling at them the entire time, while they chattered happily and hugged us tight. We were taking them for granted and demanding that they get themselves together and, I don't know, become US. Immediately.

After everyone was in bed we came downstairs. He started on the dishes and I grabbed one of the kids' notebooks to steal some paper to make a grocery list. It turned out to belong to B, my sweet, sensitive, tightly-wound child. (I am so sorry, Future B.) The first page I turned to made me exclaim out loud. The Professor asked what I had seen, and I told him:

"Dear Dad: I love you Dad. Love B."

I kept turning pages to find a blank one.

"I love DAD."
"Mama I love you."

Eventually I gave up on blank paper and just started flipping, reading his messages out loud.

"Frands in Sunday School: [list of names]"
"I love Mrs. Adamson"
"Dear Mama, I love you."
"My Frands: [list of names]"
"Once Upon a time was a boy named B...and he lived happily ever after. THE END"
"Dear Ta I love Ta."
"I love my dad."

Most pages just contained one line or sentence, in the wasteful way of children. Oh, how precious those messages were. They hit my heart with their deep love and sensitivity, reminding me of how ungracious I had been to my boy who had the audacity to whine at me. (Gosh, five-year-old. Grow up.) I was so ashamed of myself while simultaneously so proud of the love B had to offer, despite my sometimes weak example. I vowed to get over myself and my rigid personality and always appreciate them in the future.

And then, of course, I lost it with him this morning because he had the audacity to be off of school on my birthday and then ask me the same question four times in a row.

I don't know what I'm getting at. Of course I could make this a Sunday school answer and point toward God, and of course that is true and right and good. I cannot do anything on my own, as I learn in painful lessons multiple times each day. I could start walking the streets and hollering at random, startled mothers to "Enjoy this while you can!" (That option would make no sense because a) it makes no sense anyway, and b) where are my OWN children in this scenario? Wandering the neighborhood? I hope they have become feral children in the nearby cornfields. What a great scenario.)

I guess I'm mainly writing this down so that Future Christine can enjoy it, even from a distance. I hope Future Christine can look back on Past Christine and think, Oh, you did a great job with those kids, and you certainly enjoyed it. Your hair looked like a hot mess three-quarters of the time, but no one can deny that you loved your kids and raised them up and gave them and yourself to God a thousand times a day. Well done, faithful mama. Now go get your upper lip waxed, because it won't break the bank and HONEY.

Reminder to Present Christine: Call the salon.

January Photo Dump (Mainly Featuring H, Because of Cute)

I'm just going to stop in and dump a few photos over here on the ole blog. Because I can, and also I have a sinus infection and am not really capable of much beyond a photo dump. I don't know about you, but when I think 'sinus infection,' I think like, Oh, kind of a nasty cold, but not so bad. But seriously, they are THE WORST. I haven't had one in a few months, and I conveniently forgot how utterly draining and energy-depleting they seriously are. I stay at home and have kids in school and a supportive husband and parents and don't necessarily need to fix a meal every night for us to survive, and I am spent. I salute all parents who deal with sinus infections (or worse) while working full-time and juggling everything that that entails. I feel like a huge baby for even saying anything, but hey. I'm a huge baby and just cleaning the bathroom makes me want to take a nap.

(Don't use our upstairs bathroom, you guys.)

Speaking of babies, we've got one. He's 15 months old now and is seriously THE BEST ever. We cannot imagine how we functioned without him in the cold, distant, pre-Raisin past.

Oh, yes, The Curl. He has a smidge more hair on his head than he did this summer, but it still insists on curling right on top and sometimes it does some truly miraculous, gravity-defying things. Winter static adds to the general hilarity.

He's saying lots and walking and running everywhere and forcefully requesting independence and all those typical toddler things. Except I refuse to call him a toddler. He is mah bay-beeeee.

Most of these pictures feature H because, let's face it, he and I spend the entire day together. We're buds.

These two are also buds:

 

 

My handsome husband-with-a-winter-beard is back to a 8-4ish schedule (most of the time), sleeping at home and just generally delighting us all with his presence. And with his beard. I got him that cardigan for Christmas because he has the slender, tall body of a male model and is perfect for clothes like this and skinny jeans. I would hate him if I didn't love him so much.

 

Final point and photo: We've been battling lots of various viruses the last couple months, which is of course frustrating and disheartening, thought not unexpected considering the time of year and the extreme exposure my three oldest have in public school. All of our immune systems are in boot camp. Two weeks ago I was at the pediatrician's office three days in a row (with different kids), and last week I had at least one kid home from school each day. J felt womity and puked on the bus this past Friday morning (so awful, right?), and while he seemed to feel exceptionally awesome and hungry and chipper immediately after, he was still exhausted enough to fall asleep on the couch, which I assure you NEVER happens around here.

 

 



Blankie, red hair, purpley sick eyes, palepalepale wan face that is so slender these days and not at all like a baby's. Be still my heart, I love it all. I love him so much, and if I could take all the puke and snot and fever and general misery into my own body and leave him healthy and strong, I would. For now all I can do is rush to school, cuddle on the couch, and buy stock in apple juice. And kiss him when he's asleep because MOOOMMMM.

Just so my future self remembers: J has stopped calling me 'Mama' and now calls me 'Mommy.' I told him I preferred 'Mama,' but he is insistent and really, who cares? We're still a step away from 'Mom' (which makes them sound like teenagers) and he's still calling me, you know? I'll take whatever I can get.

I'm going to abruptly end this post and sleep the sleep of the just. At one o'clock in the afternoon. Thug life, you know?

Blazingly White

So you know last post when I proudly showed you our "new" bedroom?

I got that post up just in time, because two days later this is what my bedroom looked like:

And this:

And part of the sewing room looked like this:

That's not to mention the piles underneath the desk. Or the piles behind the chair. Or the general crap-dump going on in the front of the sewing room:

My house looked like several tornadoes had come through (if tornadoes can be concerned with organizing books by genre and author) because in the living room I was doing this:

And this:

You see, Camelback (by Sherwin-Williams) and I were parting ways. It was a good neutral that had served me well, but I had been itching to change it for some time. I was over its warm tones, and I was sick of my walls, furniture, and floors all matching. I was swimming in a sea of tan. I needed change.

(I did this completely against my husband's wishes. I just feel the need to admit that. Not that he really cares about the color, per se. He just didn't see why I needed to go to a bunch of trouble to change something that was, to his mind, perfectly fine. As in "not crappy and broken," like a lot of other things are when we tackle renovations around here. I see his view, but I respectfully think it's stupid.)

It was a tedious, cranky job because a) I had to work around our high and very detailed bookshelf, which is, for all intents and purposes, built-in; b) I was doing it on my own (see above note regarding spousal uncooperation); c) I didn't prime (stupid) and therefore had to apply three coats; and d) I was painting not only the largest room in our house, but also our small hallway and our entryway.

Also, everyone chose last week to get furiously ill. B actually burst an ear drum the night I was wrestling with the final coat. IT WAS INSANE.

But I got it done! The final product is...stark.

I chose a white called Pegasus by Olympic, and I'm really happy with it, starkness and all. I wanted a neutral that wouldn't look outdated in 10 years, and as much as I like gray, I'm not predicting longevity for it. White is as neutral as you can get, and I had seen lots of rooms done in white that really appealed to me. Of course, they have usually had years (or money) to accumulate lots of funky, personalized wall decor to temper the starkness, so I'm giving myself time. It's going to stay stark for awhile. I'm telling myself to be okay with this.

It's all very...echoey, what with the few hundred books who normally call this room home out on vacation. We seriously have a lot of books. The classics a portion of sci-fi are housed in our bedroom, in case you need to borrow a book or something. And all the shelves in the dining room are still intact. Oh geez.

Oh, and we've created a little conundrum for ourselves in the form of the hallway alcovey guy in between our bedroom and the bathroom. It used to house two tall, thin Billy bookshelves from Ikea, full to the brim with mostly sci-fi, but when we took them down to paint we realized they had been hogging nearly all the space in the hall. We had been toying with the idea of building something nicer to replace them, but when we saw how much hallway we had been giving up just to house them, they were definitely out. Now the stubby hallway looks so blank and bare.

And we're still veering to the left when we make potty trips in the middle of the night. Old habits die hard.

We're considering more above-the-door, hidden book storage in there. Or floating shelves on the wall? Again, we're taking it slowly. Sure, we want sci-fi back in its place, but we want to do this well and use our small space wisely, unlike before.

So that was my week after New Year's. Now the kids are back in school, ear drums NOT bursting, the walls are most definitely white, and I have to balance on the loveseat to get T.S. Eliot back in American Poetry.

Here's where I'd make a Prufrock or "Wasteland" joke, but that seems really stupid in a snobbish sort of way, and also I'm tired and keep tripping on the volume of Little Women that's near the foot of my bed and my walls are very very white and ZOMG, what was I thinking, I have kids.

The end.

The Master Bedroom is Done!

So. Are you ready to see my bedroom?

Wait, wait, that sounded wrong, I'M SO SORRY. Let me back up. If you hang out here with any regularity (and let's be honest--not much happens here, so I'm pretty impressed by your loyalty), then you know that our master bedroom transformation has been a long time coming. Back in August I entered my bedroom in a makeover contest (which I didn't win) that ended up being the catalyst for change. Soon after NOT winning, we were able to get a ton of siding and window work done, which included new windows in the bedroom. Right before getting the new windows in I took the plunge and bought some really nice bedding, thus banishing the dragons that had previously adorned our bed. Then around Thanksgiving my dad took out and started to fill in the funky look-into-the-sunroom window in our bedroom. When THAT was finally done, my mom moved in and got it painted and stencilled.

Gracious! This bedroom really has been in the works for some time. Let's move to some pictures.

First, a reminder of what it looked like before, in case you didn't feel like traipsing through all those links.

After new bedding, but before new windows:





Except for the ginger baby, it was pretty awful, right? I painted it green as soon as we moved in, did nothing with the room itself (aren't master bedrooms so often neglected?), and then slowly grew to hate not just the color or my accessories, but the room itself. Uh-oh. One should not hate one's master bedroom. You spend too much time and do too many important things (like crossword puzzles!) in there to spare any hatred for it. If possible, it must be sanctuary.

We moved closer to sanctuary with some paint and a finicky stencil, which is as much as I've shown you.

Please walk into our bedroom...now.

AAAARRRGGHHHH I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I CAN'T STOP SCREAMING.

Okayokayokay I think I have a grip. Pheeeww.

Let's first discuss something really quickly, because it was crucial to the finishing of this room. My goal was to spend nothing. Nothing. Now, that doesn't include the bedding--I'm talking about the final, pull-it-together stages I enacted just a couple weeks ago. Nor does it include the drywall work or paint or stencil, all of which were part of our Christmas present from our folks. I wanted to get the whole thing done and colorful and pretty without spending a dime.

I succeeded by using stuff I already had.

Wait, I think I bought light bulbs. I did not have those. I also paid for new outlets, a new light switch, and a new light switch cover, but I'm not counting those. I had to buy those things new, and we kind of needed them to, you know, turn on the lights and update the electrical work in the room. I'm talking about the pretties. The stuff that no one was excited about except my mom and me.

Please ignore the still-raw windows.
Trim will happen. Eventually.

Here, have a list:

Headboard: old pantry door from our basement, painted the same blue as our upstairs bathroom. It weighs a million pounds and will probably never crush us in our sleep. We think the screws are long enough.

My "nightstand": an antique yellow stool, also previously seen in our upstairs bathroom

The Professor's "nightstand": an old wire milk bottle basket I had sitting around

Bedside light: an Ikea find I had bought for another project but didn't end up using (I will need to buy another one of these next time we're up there.)

Chandelier: free from my mother-in-law! I painted it glossy black with spray paint I found in my basement.

Throw pillows: pilfered from around the house and/or recovered by me using scrap material

Curtains: purchased from Ikea this fall after window renovation

Antique mirror precariously leaning on stool: in my basement (garage sale find from years ago)

Letter C, also leaning precariously: in my closet (from old alphabet wall) Does it stand for "Christine" or "Case"? NOBODY KNOWS.

Crossword puzzle book: all mine, suckers

Hidden baskets overflowing with cloth diapers: courtesy of Raisin Baby Extraordinaire

Artwork on wall across from bed: All from around the house. The Eiffel Tower print was a gift from my parents last Christmas (I hung it exactly 364 days after getting it), the tryptic of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Audrey Hepburn, and Claude Monet was made by yours truly in high school, the frame was in our basement and received a fresh coat of glossy white, also found in our basement, and the record frame, a gift from Janie, holds artwork from an old Mary Poppins album we had on hand.

(Eventually, I'd love to fill every inch of these walls with pictures in all shapes and sizes.)

Dresser and mirror: Our old ones, painted afresh. The mirror is done in the same blue as the headboard, and the dresser is painted a semi-gloss white that I found in my basement. (Our basement is not nearly as interesting as I'm making it sound.) The dresser is devoid of twee decor because I am being SO VERY GOOD about letting it cure for a looong time, waxing it, and then letting THAT cure for a looong time. I chose not to paint the drawers after being inspired by this post, and I'm very happy with the results. The unpainted drawers remain cohesive with the flooring and dark woodwork and doors.

Cameo! I'm sucking in my tummy here.

Pinkie and Blue Boy: Mine for several years now. I have sentimental reasons for owning these pictures and hanging them proudly, even though they are slightly kitschy (thus their appeal!) and really creep my husband out.

Diaper wet bag: Also courtesy of Raisin Baby.

Aaannnd...that's it! That is my room, which is now a sanctuary, honestly and truly. I love every inch of it, even the wobbly plaster underneath the windows. I feel a real sense of pride in this room. Not only does it look exactly like I want it to look, but I did it myself (with some significant help from my spouse and parents), without the aid of a makeover contest, without needing to spend thousands of dollars in new decor. I spent a little money, then wandered around my house and shopped for the extras. Reopening forgotten cans of paint gave me a genuine thrill. I am weird that way.

I hope you enjoyed the tour and can come over in person someday to sink into our bedspread and fill in some crossword clues for me. If you do, it will get crowded quickly as it's not a very large room, but it is every bit ours. 


(P.S.: I bought the duvet from The Company Store. I know, I know. I splurged. The duvet cover and shams are here. They are pretty basic--the throw pillow is ridiculously awful, and there is already a tear in the lining of our cover. I don't know what in the world would cause that. It just, you know, lays on top of us as we sleep. I promise, I'm not sticking knives in it. I really like the  puffy, ruched look of the cover, but I don't know if I'd tell you to buy it, too. Maybe find a similar one that's a bit pricier.)