Minor Problem

Sigh. I have some disturbing news.

My sister Kari is pregnant.

This would not be such a big deal, if she wasn’t 17. And if she didn't already have an almost-2-year-old.

To catch my newer readers up, Kari found out she was pregnant when she was 14. The father was 18, and already had 2 children with another girl (also a minor). While Kari was pregnant, this same boy got two OTHER girls pregnant (yes, also minors).

Rock on, Kari. You sure know how to pick ‘em.

So, Kari tells me she’s pregnant, and I’m, well… not supportive. “What the hell, Kari? You didn’t learn your lesson the first time?”

“It really wasn’t my fault this time,” Kari said. “I was on birth control. I was on the shot.”

“No way. I call BS. Depo Provera has like 99.7% success rate. How far along are you?”

“The doctor thinks I’m about 2 months along.”

“And when did you get your first shot?”

“Well… I got it about two months ago. But they told me it would start working right away!”

Ugh.

And get this: the father is the SAME GUY. I really lost it when she told me that.

“Seriously, Kari? Because he takes such good care of his other five kids? What about the girls he got pregnant while you were pregnant with Ana?”

“I can’t really get upset with him for that. We were broken up at the time.”

“And what about now? Are you together? Are you a couple?”

Kari hesitated. “We’re… going together Lite.”

“What???? Going together Lite??? What does that even mean?”

“It means we’re not really a couple, but I would be mad if I heard that he was hooking up with someone else.”

“Oh my God. I’m going to kill you. And then I’m going to kill him. And then I’m going to kill Mom. What did Mom even say about this? Did she go ballistic?”

“Well, she’s taking it better than you are.”

Of course. Because I’m the only grown up here.

So, I had to end the conversation before I started to hyperventilate, so I didn’t get her due date, but I’m guessing late March/ early April. I know I should be a supportive sister, and I love my niece, and I know I’m going to love this new baby just as much, but it’s hard.

Seriously hard.

Joy

I’m joining in on 5 Minute Friday at The Gypsy Mama today-- you write for 5 minutes and then post whatever comes out, no editing allowed. Today’s topic is Joy.

I’ve always thought Joy was a beautiful name, but I never knew anyone with that name, until I got a job teaching. I was replacing a woman who went out on maternity leave, and her name was Joy.

Never had a person been blessed with a more apt name. She was truly joy personified. You could see it in her face, in the way she talked to her students, in the way she taught her lessons. She was a woman of God, that was clear, but you could tell that she took joy out of simply living.

I was no match for her. This was my first teaching job, I was young and inexperienced, and I in no way compare to Joy. The students saw through me on the first day, as I stumbled through grammar lessons and discussions about The Scarlet Letter. Who was this new teacher? She certainly was not Joy, she did not have joy.

I taught for 6 months. In the end, I realized that teaching did not bring me joy, even though that’s what I went to school to do. I’d rather do something that brought me Joy.

(I need to learn to type faster. I had so much more to say!)

The Days After 9/11

I read this on Twitter yesterday: "Nearly more important than remembering where you were on 9/11 is remembering how we treated people on 9/12."

How did you treat people on 9/12? Were your thoughts filled with unity, suspicion, fear, or something else entirely?

Of course, I remember 9/11. I was single at the time and living alone. I had the day off of work for some reason. I slept in and then went to the mall to do some shopping. I had a CD in the car so I didn’t listen to the radio. My purchases at the mall were uneventful, and I didn’t notice anything unusual about the crowds (or lack thereof). I didn’t turn on the tv until that evening. That’s when I found out. So, my September 12th was really probably what most of you experienced on the 11th. I went back to work and talked to all my friends and coworkers about what was happening. I don’t remember much about the 12th. I know I called my parents, I called my best friends, and I watched the news as much as I could.

But I do remember the weeks that followed. My father and stepmother were planning a trip to New York in three weeks. I begged them not to go. I was sure there would be more attacks. I didn’t want to be anywhere near New York. Or Chicago. Or San Francisco. Our country was in trouble, and I wanted to stay out of the line of fire.

I know many other people were uniting together, ready for a fight, ready to retaliate. I just wanted to stay out of harm’s way. I didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t feel safe. While I didn’t think that my small hometown would be attacked, I didn’t know about the future of our country, and about everything I hold dear.

I didn’t like that I was alone during these tumultuous times. I wanted someone who I could share my fears with. I wanted someone who would tell me everything was going to be ok. I wanted someone who could take care of me, and who I could take care of. I had just broken up with my boyfriend of two years a few weeks earlier; I considered giving him a call.

I’m glad I didn’t. I met The Agent two weeks later.

And everything was ok.

Adventures in Color

I finally got around to making my blog header. Do you love? I may tweak it still a bit, but I’m liking the general idea. I’ve always made my buttons and headers in Photoshop in the past, but I’ve recently started playing with Picnik. Oh my goodness. SO much easier. It’s like Photoshop for the not-so-bright (me). The babies are BK and Bug, of course. Bringing on the cuteness. You know my paranoia with posting pictures, but if you can look at a black and white photo of a newborn and know who those kids are, you’re cooler than I am.

The house is coming along. The master bathroom is completely gutted. The carpets and tile and vinyl are all ripped out. Now we have to remove all the lights and doorknobs and such, before the painters come next Monday to paint.

The Agent has informed me that there’s granite countertops in my future. He was able to get a couple of good deals on other stuff, and we were under budget, so we found a guy to do our countertops who won’t completely take advantage of us. This is more than I hoped for. The Agent has already ripped out the old tile countertops, so there’s no going back now. I'm starting to get pretty friggin' excited. It's going to be like a whole new house!

I had no idea that picking out colors would be so difficult. I have no eye for this kind of stuff. I had looked at all the paint colors online and went to the paint store with the names of the paint I wanted samples of. It was a total mistake to look online, by the way. The computer color and the real color were completely different. I could have saved myself the three hours of staring at my computer screen. The three shades of beige I had seen online looked brown, olive and… some other color once I got to the store. Not beige, at any rate.

The problem was, I had two grumpy children with me who needed a nap, and I didn’t have the luxury of looking at thousands of paint chip samples. “Ummm… I would like a sample of Practical Beige, please.” The Agent's a practical, logical guy, so he should like that. “And the shade above that, Sand Dollar, please.”

The guy started mixing a quart of each, while I stared at the cards. They were starting to look a little pink. “Bug, look at this card. Do the colors look pink to you?”

Bug looked at the card. “Those are brown, Mommy.”

“No, they look pink to me. I think they might be pink.”

“Mommy, I’m in kindergarten, you’re not. Those are brown.”

Ugh.

I carried the card to the paint guy, who had just finished mixing my paint. “Do those look pink to you?”

The guy barely glanced at them. “Yes ma’am. Those are pink.”

Oh, God. The Agent would kill me if I painted our living room pink. I made the paint guy mix me up two more quarts. "Can you please pick out two shades of light beige? I'll trust your judgement." I'm sure the paint guy is used to dealing with crazies like me, because he did not seem to think this was an unusual request.

I went to the new house the next morning, and painted the samples on the wall. I don’t know about you guys, but I HAVE to see the paint on the wall first. And I’m happy to say, we have decided on a color: our house will be “Kilim Beige.”

My vocabulary isn’t great, so I had to look up the meaning of Kilim. It’s a rug.

Hey, as long as it’s beige, I don’t care what a kilim is!

September 23rd

She woke up to the sun on her face, streaming in through the open window. The sun was shining, but the morning air was crisp and cool. There was no frost on the ground, not yet, but Libby could tell the grass would be crisp with frost by the end of the week.

Libby rolled over and faced the empty side of the bed. Jim had already left. He was finding excuses to leave for work earlier and earlier. And they weren’t talking at night. Libby couldn’t remember saying more than three words to him last night: “hey” when he walked in the door, and “good night” when she went to bed.

This wasn’t working. She knew it, she could feel it, but it was so much easier to see it than to do something about it. But there was no reason to stay together. They weren’t married, they didn’t have kids, they were leasing the apartment. There were no loose ends.

Libby got out of bed and walked to the window. She looked down on the street below. She could do it, she could just pack up her stuff and leave. She could get her own apartment, get a cat, buy a sofa. They would both be happier without each other.

But was she strong enough to be on her own? Was her life so bad that she’d be better off alone? They didn’t fight, not really. He didn’t hit her or abuse her… but he didn’t love her. Not the way she deserved to be loved.

She deserved perfection. She deserved to have the world. To settle for anything less made no sense.

She walked away from the window and pulled her suitcase from the closet. She would pack a few things, go stay with her sister, and then come back for the rest of her things when she found an apartment of her own. She could call Jim, or leave a note, or even wait for him to come home, but she knew she really didn’t need to. He wouldn’t be surprised to find her gone. He needed a change, too.

She packed a week’s worth of clothes and snapped the suitcase closed. She called her sister, asked her if she could stay for a few days. Yes, of course, yes. She started out the door, then went back in for a scarf when she felt the September air on her cheeks. She smiled as she crunched through the fallen leaves on the sidewalk. She loved this time of year. Many people say that Autumn marks the end of life, but Libby knew she would always see it as a new beginning.

The Topic:
For this week’s prompt, write about a season of change for your character or you. It can be literal or metaphorical.

To Do List

There's so much to do on this house. It's freaking me out a bit. It's like we're on one of those HGTV flip shows, and I'm in a panic that we're going to have to pay two mortgages forever.

Here's what I tell people we're doing:
Replace the Master shower
New carpet upstairs, hardwood downstairs.
New paint throughout


Here's what we actually need to do:
Replace the Master shower
New carpet upstairs, hardwood downstairs.
New paint throughout
New vinyl in bathrooms
Restain all cabinets
Replace all baseboards
Replace kitchen counters(remove the tile, install a solid service to be determined)
Replace all light fixtures
Replace all ceiling fans (there are six-- way too many.)
Replace all door knobs and hinges
Restain balcony
Replace mirrors and towels racks in all three bathrooms


There's more to do, but my head is exploding just thinking of all this stuff.

Here's what we've done so far:


<crickets chirping>

This whole turn-a-crap-house-into-your-dream-home is a lot of work. And the hardest part is trying to decide what to do first.

The New Home

So, it's official. I own two houses.

When we were house hunting, we looked at MANY beautiful homes:

This house wasn't so special on the inside, but look at the backyard! Right on the water! 

All lovely, right?

Here's the house we actually bought:

 Oh, no. 

 Oh, my.

You're kidding me, right?

Now, you might be wondering why, after looking at all the beautiful options, did we choose a home that was so... not.

I wonder this myself.

When we first looked at the house, I vetoed it right away. The pictures don't even do it justice. I had never seen carpet so dirty. I was certain I was going to catch some kind of disease just by looking at the shower. Some evil child had scribbled in Sharpie all over the cabinets. There were puncture holes in the bathroom floor.  It was really just a mess.  Plus it had less bedrooms than what we were used to, and it was a two story when we're used to a single. I really couldn't see us living there.

But The Agent is a persuasive guy. He really liked the house. He felt it had everything we were looking for. It was in a nicer neighborhood. It had rv access for our trailer. It had a  bigger backyard with mature trees. But what The Agent loved most about it was that it needed work.

A lot of work.

I didn't get it at first, but he's right, that really is the best thing about the house. Structurally, the house is in great shape. But because it was such a mess, it was selling for a fraction of the cost of the other homes in the area. We could purchase the home for way under our budget and still have money to remodel. And, since everything needed to be replaced anyway, the home could be exactly the way we want it, and it would really be like a brand new house.

So, he convinced me.

And now the work begins.

The Agent is a handy guy, and can do a lot of the work himself. What he can't do, he will hire out. We hope to be moved in by mid November.

Any words of encouragement?