weekend update

I have reached a whole new level of tired. One I haven't experienced since Jack was a baby 10 years ago and I didn't sleep for a year. Now that's tired.

I wanted to just lay around and veg all weekend and for the most part I did but Saturday morning I was obligated to take part in Footstock with my two oldest kids.
When I registered us months ago I had every intention of training for it and beating my time from last year but life got in the way and June has been consumed with the reno. I stopped training and focused on other more pressing issues. Like not dying financially.

I signed up Cicely and Jack to run it as well. Cicely trained. Jack did not. He's only ten, I figured he'd just do his best and then he could say he ran a 10K.... just for the fun of it. He was supposed to run it with a friend but that friend didn't register in time so Jack asked me to stay with him. No problem, I thought, I haven't trained either so we'll just go it slow and see how it goes.

We had a plan. We talked about it lots. Jack was nervous. Ten seconds into the race he was itching just to get on with it. He didn't want to stay with me, he just wanted to go. Go, I said. I'll catch up with you when you burn yourself out. I never saw him again.

As I crossed the finish line an hour and 21 minutes later (5 minutes worse than last year) I saw them waiting for me. How did you do I asked? Cicely said she did it in an hour and 3. Wow! That's great, I told her. You beat your personal best by a minute. I looked at Jack........

58 minutes, he said.

WHAT?????? Are you kidding me? I looked back at Cicely. She said he passed her shortly into it and never saw him again! WHAT?????? Are you kidding me?

He said he ran for a bit with an older lady who kept telling him he was doing so well. She came up to me after and told me she couldn't believe it that she was going to get beat by a 10 year old. Oh to be 10 and to weigh 88 pounds. I guess they glide above ground. Her official time was 1:03:34, she came in third for her age group and his was 57:52. Unreal.

Me, on the other hand...... different story. I'm not a runner. In fact, I can walk faster than I can run. I was thinking, as I chased my curvy shadow all along the river, that if I had power walked it I may have had a better time!

All in all........


................not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning.

This weekend my kids are my heros.

gong show

It is 10:48 pm and I should really go to bed. But, I have to record this ridiculous day, I just have to!

Up at 6:45. Got kids off to school at 7:30. Left at 8:20 to drive an hour away to get Chandler's homeschooling summer school stuff.

Willacy from 10-5. Painting, painting, painting. Walls are done.... the ones I can get to anyway. There are three left that have to wait for the finisher's to get their stuff out of the way. I even reached the nooks and crannies I thought I couldn't reach. Leaning on ladders is not recommended.

Painted a brown beam black to end off the work day. I love it. Here's a before and after to tempt you with:


One hour drive home just in time to drive Chandler a half hour to Martial Arts.

Then I took the other 4 kids to the mall to get birthday presents for birthday parties tomorrow and running shoes for races to be run on Saturday.

Bought a Lego present for Holden to take to Ethan's party. Holden lost Lego present in the mall. After a concerted effort to find said present I ended up buying the same present AGAIN! So now Ethan's birthday cost me $45. Who the heck is Ethan?

Drove four kids a half hour home. One of them looked like this



Put three kids to bed and left again to drive half hour to pick up Chandler at 10, who made me wait 20 minutes, to drive half hour home.

What a dumb day. My mood is low and so is my gas tank that I just filled up on Tuesday for $130.

This gong show is my life right now.

Anyone want it?...... or should I just pull the plug?

a shade darker?

I can't decide if I should paint the bathrooms the same color as everywhere else or paint them a shade or two darker of the same color.

The color I chose for the house is a very light gray/green.

I don't know what to do......

is it raining or pouring?

The weather blows. No question. It has been a long, cold, gray gross winter that has turned into a long, cold, gray, gross spring. If it doesn't turn into a 'true' summer soon I may become certifiable.

But I'm not actually talking about the weather. I am talking about how every time the man and I are financially strapped one of our vehicles breaks down. Since money is crazy tight right now with the reno I should have guessed that it wasn't just going to rain metaphorically but it would pour on us. And it has.

This past weekend my truck broke down.... sort of. It was running funny, all rumbly and stuff and then one day it just didn't start. The man came to my rescue and boosted it and then proceeded to make it worse by trying to fix it. In this process he figured out what was wrong with it and $60 later it was cured. Phew! What a relief. That wasn't so bad, I thought....... until today when I got the dreaded phone call.

I was at Willacy. Doing what, you ask? Painting, what else, when my mum called and said that the car, our car - the one she is driving while she is living here and doing my job while I paint, had broken down outside the library. It was my turn to come to her rescue. So I drove to the library wondering if $6 was going to cure the car as well.

As soon as I got to the library I felt better, I love the library. If I knew then what I know now I most definitely would have been a librarian but that's not the point.

I saved my mum, my nephew and my sweet oblivious 4 year old who's only concern when the car broke was if she was still getting a treat at 7-11, and took them home but was disturbed by something. My mum broke down on a very busy road and many, many people drove past her. No one stopped to help. She was standing there with my sweet little 4 year old and no one stopped to help her. In fact, one jack @$$ even had the nerve to roll down his window to inform her that there was something leaking out of her car, which had the hood up! I won't say what ran through my head as she told me this.

Finally two nice men came to help her. Seriously! 15 minutes of people driving by steadily before someone offered to help. What is this world coming to? Is everyone so busy that they can't take 5 minutes to see if everyone is okay? It made me sad.

And it rained most of the day which also makes me sad.

And my car is broken down 20 minutes from home and the bill to fix that will most likely make me sad.

What a fine day it has been. And yes, that was sarcasm.

a series of dears.....

Dear paint sprayer,

Although I truly appreciate when you work at your full potential inside I truly believe that if you would just spray the exterior paint onto the house when I ask you to that we could be really good friends..... forever.

Love
Catherine




Dear ladder,

I can't thank you enough for not throwing me down after I climbed you 387 times today. I am afraid of heights and painting those high walls is scary for me. Oh, and thanks for ignoring my big butt.

Love
Catherine




Dear Willacy,

Please get done faster. I am soooo very tired.

Love
Catherine

potty talk

Today I had an epiphany while using the only semi working toilet at the little brown house. Before I explain my epiphany I should show you what I endure while I work there.

This is the toilet I get to use 10 times a day. Despite the fact that I am a lady, I pee a lot:


This lovely toilet doesn't flush so here is the bucket we fill to pour away the you-know-what:


And this is the super handy tap we use to fill the bucket:


And this is the little tiny white pushy thingie that turns the water on to fill the bucket:



And here is my epiphany:

It doesn't bother me to use this toilet. Every time I go in there I say to myself "wow, this room really smells bad. I can't wait until it is new and pretty". And then I get up, fill the bucket, pour the bucket into the toilet, use some had sanitizer and walk away.

After the 8th time using this disgusting bathroom today I recalled one of the funniest things my mum has ever said to me.
Once I belched in her presence and she said this exact thing to me (and to whoever was standing there with us.) "My only regret in life is that my daughters are not more refined". She'll deny saying that, I'm sure, but it is the ABSOLUTE truth. She said it, I swear!

Then I remembered another funny thing she did when we were kids. She dragged all of us to K-Mart. She was looking for something and when she couldn't find it she went to ask someone. While she was talking to him she burped. Very lady-like, but it was a burp, nonetheless. She can deny that all she wants but there are witnesses so it would be fruitless for her to try.

So again, genetics. I am classy because my mum is classy. It's really very simple. And it's this refined classiness that allows me to sit here.....

.............10 times a day.

paint.... and stuff

Today I painted and painted and painted. I am very tired now.

Tomorrow I will paint some more and the day after that and the day after that.........

I also went to my very first Supercentre Walmart and I am in love. Ahhhhhh.

I hope it doesn't rain anymore so I can paint the outside of the little brown house. I also hope my dad doesn't nag me anymore about the dead hot tub lying on the lawn. We actually had this conversation today:

dad: let me carry that paint sprayer for you.

me: it's okay dad, it's not that heavy. I've got it.

dad: geez child, you're gonna have a stroke!

me:??????

This man ate chinese buffet for lunch and Chicken on the Way for dinner. Who's gonna have a stroke??

I love the Super Walmart. Did I say that already?

What should I take the finisher's for their treats tomorrow?

I did a headstand at yoga last night, that's really something and speaking of yoga, I hurt badly today. I wonder if it was the yoga. Or the painting.

I must sleep now for tomorrow I paint.