If you recall I have been holding off doing a full scale Christmas decoration marathon because G-man was planning on painting the kitchen. He purchased the paint last Spring and kept putting it off and putting it off. Well procrastinate no more my dear husband because today is the day. This morning I started pulling off switch plates and taping moldings and such. He got the hint quick enough. So today is paint day. And since you have to dismantle the kitchen to paint it that also means no cooking. Can today possibly get any better? I knew there was a reason I like painting.

My job in all of this paint mess was to merely supervise, provide cold beverages and occasionally paint some trim work or put more tape on moldings. What is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? Yup, you got it, I did a lot more than I originally planned on doing. I would have to say that I painted half of the kitchen when I only planned on doing perhaps 1/10 of the painting. Oh well, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or at least that is the lie I am telling myself right now. And the really bad part of it all? After the painting is completed and I get my kitchen back to normal I will be too exhausted to put up any Christmas decorations. Good grief! But at least I won’t have to cook. See, there is good in everything.

In the middle of painting my eldest son and Lil Miss (my 5 year old granddaughter) dropped by. It’s a Murphy’s Law thing. Whenever you don’t want anyone to stop by they will. They wanted to get one of Lil Miss’s bikes from the garage and to nab some sugar cookies. After they left 2 of Sonny Boys friends stopped by to try and interest him in seeing a movie. Just what I needed, more interruptions. And everyone asks the same question. “Why are you painting?” Why the hell do you think? Because it needs it! Anyway, after they leave I see a salesperson going door to door in our neighborhood. They haven’t knocked on our door yet but I’m not going to answer when they do. Is there some unwritten law against painting your kitchen on a Saturday? Because it seems that everyone is trying to halt our progress. And I tell you, if one more person asks why we are painting…

The other thing I plan on accomplishing today is blinds or curtains for my French doors in the family room. I am embarrassed to say this but we haven’t had any covering on the French doors since January 2001. That is when we remodeled the family room. We took the old mini blinds off of the French doors with plans of replacing them but one thing led to another and the next thing you know almost 5 years have passed. If you drive on the street behind our street you can look at the back of our house right in our French doors and see us sitting on the sofa on a Sunday night watching Family Guy and American Dad. It was worse before Sonny Boy moved back home because when it was just G-man and I we would sit around in our underwear. I am a little slow sometimes and didn’t realize until a couple of months ago that you could see right into our family room from the street behind our house. G-man and I were talking an evening walk and I happened to look over towards the back of our house and I saw Sonny Boy dancing in the family room in front of the TV. Wow, how many times have I done that very thing only in my underwear. The things our neighbors have seen. I guess that explains why they always smile at me in passing and wave hello.