Anyway!

When I got up at 2:30 am this morning (yesterday morning?  Who knows???)   I had to come downstairs to wake up Brayden and her friend who had spent the night and were sleeping in the den.  Kellen also had friends spend the night, sleeping upstairs.  Blaine was asleep in the living room, and the house was dark and quiet.  As I walked through our downstairs hallway, trying to keep quiet, and not turning on any lights because there were people sleeping all over the flipping house, I stepped on something.

And I thought …. oh. my. gosh. 

Whatever it was, it stuck to my sock.

And I thought …. oh. my. dear. holy. gosh.

I reached down, and it was sticky.  Bracing myself, for the life-altering image of a maggot on the bottom of my sock, I flipped on the hall light.

It was a Corn Pop.

Those are Blaine’s current snack of choice, and he eats them by the boxful.  He must have dropped one in the hall last night.

I was never so happy to see a damn Corn Pop in my entire life.

So you remember a couple of weeks ago when Blaine came to me with a funny look on his face, and I was all prepared for him to tell me his cancer was back, and instead he announced that our cat had caught a mouse, and I was all, “Woah, that wasn’t what I was expecting to hear“  but then the more I thought about it, while OF COURSE being INFESTED with rodents is preferable to my husband having cancer, still, you’ve got to admit that its pretty fucking disgusting to know there is a mice in your house, but naturally being the optimist that I am I went on the belief that was the only mouse and now it was gone and we can live happily ever after, once I get over my abuse and over use of the run-on sentence …. right?

So last week we had the exterminator come out.  He wasn’t even going to do anything until he saw some mouse droppings in our attic, so he threw down some poison and we hoped that would be the end of it.

I hosted Mother’s Day, and my mom, my sister, and my sister’s family were treated to a baked potatoe bar, a chocolate fondue fountain, and the lovely aroma of rotting, decaying flesh in our walls because apparently we had several of the little fuckers eat the poison.

I was on my way to bed just now …………. JUST NOW, like two minutes ago, and walked past the guest bathroom downstairs.  Where Blaine was standing.  Looking up at the ceiling.  With an odd expression on his face.

“What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.

“Um, you don’t want to know,” he replied.

“Oh. My. GOSH. Is there a mouse up there?  Is his disgusting little tail hanging down out of the vent?  Can you actually SEE IT?!?!?!”  I was all prepared for a mid-size freak out at the fact there might still be live mice in the house. 

But no.  No live mice.  It’s better than that.

See, summer is coming here in OK.  And we’ve had some rain, so its been slightly humid.  And apparently, unbeknownst to us, rotting, decaying animal flesh in your attic, if timed just right in a wet, warm, humid season, attracts flies. 

Who then lay eggs.

Which then turn into maggots.

Who then somehow make their way into YOUR LIGHTS IN THE GUEST BATHROOM OH MY HOLY HELL WE HAVE MAGGOTS IN THE LIGHT FIXTURE IN THE CEILING OF THE GUEST BATHROOM.

“I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t notice, and I was going to take care of it after you went to bed,”  Blaine said, ever my hero, hoping to spare me.

But now, I don’t think I’ll be going to bed tonight.  Because what if I’m sleeping, and instead of worrying about an enormous rat eating my face off, now I have to worry about MAGGOTS FALLING FROM THE CEILING AND LANDING ON ME.

For the love of all that is holy, I’d rather live in a haunted house than this place.  Does anyone know if there’s anything in Amyteville is for sale?  Because I am thiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssss close to bagging the entire thing and going to a hotel.

Aaaaannnnnnd, call #2 to the exterminator, first thing tomorrow morning.

Updated to add:

Actual conversation between Blaine and I, just now:

Me:  “Are they gone?  Did you get rid of them? Oh my GAWD I don’t think I can live here any more!”

Blaine:  “I think perhaps you are over reacting.”

Me:  “Blaine, we have MAGGOTS in our house.  How can I over react to that?  Now I can’t go to bed because I have to worry that its going to be a Fear Factor episode in the bedroom with hundreds of maggots falling on me in my sleep!”

Blaine:  “Kristie, seriously.  This will pass.  Once the mice are gone, and the flies have nothing to eat, they will be gone.  You just need to take a deep breath and relax.”

Kristie: “I can’t relax when we’re living with VERMIN!   We need to sell this house and move somewhere!!!”

Blaine :: eye rolling::

Kristie:  “No, listen, I’m serious.  What if this had happened and you hadn’t been here?  What if I had been in the restroom, minding my own business, and I had looked up and seen maggots crawling around in the light fixture?   What the HELL would I have done????   You know, I’m sorry you have cancer and all, but thank the good Lord above that means you have never deployed.  Because I thought I was pretty tough, and I thought I had what it takes to be a good military wife, but if this had happend and you hadn’t been here, I WOULD HAVE SHIT MY PANTS.”

Blaine ::more eye rolling::

I’m starting to think he’s not as sympathetic as I thought he was.

I had just turned off all the lights, when Blaine walked in the room.  He had turned on the kitchen light, so he was back-lit, was holding a kleenex to his nose, and had a funny look on his face.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

“I’ve got a nosebleed and I can’t get it to stop,” was his answer.

“But you’re ok, right?”

“Yes,” he said.  “But you’re not going to be.”

Knowing he had his 3-mo follow up with his oncologist today, and that his nose was bleeding, I braced myself for yet another “announcement” about the cancer being back.   “What’s wrong?” I asked.

Blaine hesitated, again, with this really peculiar look on his face.  “Blackie just caught a mouse at the top of the stairs.”

Now, the thing you have to know is that last week, I told Blaine I thought we had a mouse (singular … not plural) or maybe a squirrel or something, in the attic.  Or maybe in the wall.  I could hear something moving around, and heard it most often near the kitchen pantry, which walls out to our back yard.  Blaine had checked this weekend, confirmed that there was a hole leading into the wall from the outside, and put animal poison down. 

So while I already knew, intellectually, that there was a possibility we had a mouse, it was quite a different thing to hear it in real-live-person version, and to know that thing had breached the doorstep of the very place I live.  ::shudder::

“That’s not funny,” I said.  “April Fools Day was three weeks ago, and your joke isn’t funny.”

“It’s not a joke,” Blaine said, laughing at me.  “He totally caught a mouse on the stairs.”

“Again,” I repeated, “NOT FUNNY.”

 …………….. pause ………………….

“Seriously?  He caught a mouse?”

“Yep, I found him playing with it on the stairs just now.”

“Wait.  It wasn’t dead????”

Blaine had to explain to me that this is apparently normal cat behavior (remember, I’ve never owned a cat in my life, and wasn’t real thrilled about taking in this one, a stray, that we inherited with the house three years ago.)   Little did I know, but it appears cats like to play with their captures, before killing and eating them.

“You mean he’s going to EAT the mouse???”  I started feeling a little panicky.

“Well, he probably will when he’s doing playing with it.” Blaine replied logically.

“Where the HELL is the mouse now?” I practically shouted.

“I don’t know.  Blackie took off down the stairs when he saw me coming.”

“AND THE MOUSE STILL WASN’T DEAD YET????”  Really, was it not obvious that I was getting upset????

So Blaine tracked the cat down to the den, where he had dragged the mouse (still alive) and was still playing with it.  I don’t know which thought bothered me more …. that there was a live mouse in my house, being tortured by my cat, or that said cat most likely had every intention of eating said mouse in the same house ….. raw.  Uncooked.  No honey-mustard dipping sauce or anything.

I was officially creeped out.

“How many do you think he’s killed?  Do you think that’s the only one?  Geez, there’s never just one mouse, everyone knows they swarm in packs.  My GOD, we’re infested with mice!!  Probably big ones!!  Like rats!  Like giant, disgusting rats that are going to climb all over us in our sleep and eat our faces off!!!  Oh my goodness, go get the kids, we’re going to a hotel tonight!!!!!!”

Blaine, calmly, “I think perhaps you are over-reacting. It’s a teeny, tiny, single mouse.”

Me, practically screaming, “ROUS’s!!  They’re like ROUS’s!!!!!  I can’t live here anymooooooooooorrrrrrrrrreeeee!”

Blaine realized he had two options …. hit me over the head with a heavy mallet to knock me out, the only method guaranteed to calm me down, or, go get rid of the damn mouse.

So he took the (still alive) mouse from the cat and killed it.  The thought of which almost sent me back into hysterics.

Then Blaine felt bad that he took the mouse away from the cat (depriving him of his “kill”  — some feline psychological BULLSHIT I DON’T CARE GET THAT MOUSE OUT OF MY HOUSE) so he spent the rest of the evening petting the cat and praising the cat and stroking the cat and giving the cat treats.

I spent the rest of the night trying to sleep with one eye open so no giant rat would eat my face off.

Needless to day, our first call today was to the exterminator.  That might have been the only mouse in a fifty mile radius.  We’ve seen no evidence of mice in our kitchen or pantry, and have found zero mouse droppings anywhere.

But I’m telling you, we are taking no chances.  If I find out there’s another, I am putting a for sale sign in the front yard and moving the hell out.  But I’m taking the cat with me.  Because as awful as it is to know that my cat caught a mouse, right in my very house, imagine the alternative. 

So happy for our stray.

It was  … in a nutshell … the most perfect sofa ever.  Wide enough that Blaine and I could both lie down on it to watch tv or nap.  Granted, that was quite a few pounds ago, and back when we were young and cuddly enough that we wanted to do that sort of thing …. now, we own a king size bed and each of us threaten the other with bodily harm if they encroach so much as an INCH on the wrong side.  Ahhhhh, true love.

We had that sofa and love seat for several years before getting married, moving to our first military base, and deciding the time was right for us to buy “real” furniture. We were growing up, and entering the world of “entertaining others” and did we really want to do it with hand-me-down furniture?   So we splurged on a matching sofa, loveseat and chair, which were good enough, but suddenly no longer wide enough for us to share.  Which was sort of sad, really. 

We had *that* furniture for about twelve years before deciding it was time for new.  It looked good for a while, but then we got dogs, and then kids, and then in a moment of very bad (or very good, depending on your perspective) timing, the day before we donated it to The Airman’s Attic on base, Brayden threw up all over it.   So, I was not too sad to see it go.

To replace that, we bought furniture that I LOVED when I saw it in the showroom.  Plaid sleeper sofa and loveseat, floral overstuffed chair and ottoman, with about a dozen matching pillows for all of it.  I spied it at the store, and bought it without even sitting in it.  THAT was how much I loved it.   It was clearly my Martha Stewart Living phase, and I knew I would never need another set of furniture.   And I continued to love, love, love it, with all my heart and soul  ……….. until we had it in our house for about half an hour.

First of all, it was total crap.  Every speck of dirt showed and when you’d try to clean it you’d get a huge water stain.  We’d had it less than a month and the skirting was falling off.  It fell off on a regular basis after that.  We got tired of calling the company to repair it, so Blaine started tacking it back up with a staple gun and duct tape.  No lie.   ‘Cause we’re classy like that.  The sleeper sofa might have been THE most uncomfortable sofa-bed in the world, and the fabric on the cushions was itchy.  You couldn’t take a nap on it, or even sit on it in shorts, without putting down a blanket to keep your legs from scratching.

I hated that furniture.

When we moved here to OKC, we moved that junk up to the game room and bought a new sofa.  Which I liked ok.  Actually, which I liked a lot.  The fabric doesn’t show a ton of dirt, and it’s bumply, which I love.  But the arms are too high for comfortable napping.  Way too high.  You wake up with a serious crick in your neck.  It still wasn’t wide enough for Blaine and I to share.  And every time I would take a nap, I would promise myself that the next time I bought a sofa, I would remember to LAY DOWN ON IT in the furniture store and make sure it was comfortable.  And big.

I bought a new sofa last week, for our renovated den.  Can you guess what I FORGOT to do at the store??  So imagine my pleasant surprise when I lay down on the new sofa today and discovered —- the arms are the exact right height for naps.  No pillow necessary.  And the fabric is comfortable … not too hot, not itchy.  OK, sure, its still not wide enough for Blaine and I to share, but let’s be honest, I’m a lot bigger than when we met, so I don’t think the sofa is to blame.  Still, I had a mighty fine nap today on that sofa.

So what is the moral of the story?

I should lose weight?

Next time I’m buying a sofa, lay down on it, no matter how silly I look in the store?

No, the moral of the story is that the $75 garage sale hand-me-down sofa is the best one we ever had. 

Although I’m glad I no longer own the world’s greatest quarters table because my kids don’t need to know about that just yet.

Gayle, believe me, I would prefer NOT to have the master bedroom upstairs.  Not only will I have to walk up our stairs, which are incredibly steep, just to get to and from my bedroom, but the laundry room is downstairs which means I’ll be lugging laundry as well.  For someone as lazy as I am, it is NOT an appealing proposition.

But since we moved into this house two years ago I have been bitching and moaning about the ridiculously huge bedrooms and disproportionately small living spaces.  This is the best way we could figure to solve that problem and are incredibly hopeful it will make us much happier in our own home.  I have no doubt when the kids move out, and Blaine and I become too decrepit to make it up and down the stairs, we’ll move our bedroom back downstairs.  But until then, room for all of us in the living room, finally!

In anticipation of getting our “den” started, we bought a new sofa.  Which was delivered today.  Which perfectly matches our other sofa, and I was thrilled to get because apparently this style has been discontinued and they found only one left in a warehouse in Tulsa and so I snagged it at a discount and felt quite smug about doing so.

Until the delivery men today walked in the house, took one look at the door frames between the front door and the master bedroom/den, and announced “no freakin’ way” would the sofa fit. 

And whether they were right, or they just didn’t try hard enough, I don’t know, but I now have an extra sofa standing on its end in my dining room.  With a matching sofa in the living room, that ALSO will apparently not fit through the door frame.

Surprisingly, bursting into tears in front of the delivery men accomplished nothing.

In preparation for getting the new sofa in the den, Blaine delivered our old bedroom furniture to a local thrift store this afternoon.  Which means we will be joining the kids on mattresses on the floor.  Or I guess we could unfold the sleeper sofa that is now in the dining room.

I consider myself fairly easy going, and I understand that in the big picture, this is not important.

But when sofa delivery men can reduce me to tears, I think its time for the remodel project to be finished.

I love being so close to the school, and our church, and the house is without a doubt bigger than any house we could have afforded to build ourselves, and I am so, so, so grateful we’re living here and not in the middle of what I’m sure would be Renovation Hell in the first house we bought ….. but it’s weird. I mean, the layout and design of this house is weird.

Who builds a 3600 sq ft house with only two bedrooms? Never mind the bedrooms are big enough to hold wedding receptions in, or perhaps land an aircraft carrier in … who does that? And who builds a pantry bigger than most bathrooms, and puts in a state-of-the-art oven/stove/grill/vented hood thing …. but puts both of those items in a kitchen, the size of which is usually found in a much smaller house? And puts a closet in the upstairs bedroom that is bigger than most bedrooms? And yeah, we’ve got storage out the wazoo (remember, Kellen actually sleeps in a 20 x 12 ft CLOSET) but has a teeny tiny living room?

The living room is probably my number one pet peeve about this house. I’m sure it was the perfect size for the family before us, who only had one child — I mean, it’s not *really* teeny-tiny. That was me, exaggerating (imagine that.) But once you get all five of us sprawled all over the furniture, plus any friends my kids have over, or heaven forbid any of my family come over to hang out, not to mention the piano we purchased after the kids started lessons, ….. basically, there’s just not as much room as we would like in some parts of the house, and way more room than we need in others.

We decided one way to clear space in the living room would be to move the entertainment center into the master bedroom and get a smaller, simple tv stand that wouldn’t take up as much space. The entertainment center was something the previous owners left behind when they moved. First, I thought it was simple generosity on their part, leaving it behind for us to enjoy. Then I thought maybe since they were down-sizing they didn’t want it. Because it’s not just big, it’s really big. After last night, we realize the *real* reason they left it behind is because it’s so freakin’ monstrous they couldn’t get it through the door when they left.

There are two ways to get to the master bedroom, and both paths require a u-turn in a hall. Hmmmm. How do you get an eight-foot piece of furniture through a seven-foot doorway and turn a 180 degree corner at the same time? You don’t. You measure, and squint, and discuss, and measure again, but ultimately, you don’t.

So just what DO you do????

Like Larry the Cable Guy might say, you grab the necessary tools, and saw that sumbitch in half.

(OK, so maybe Larry the Cable Guy wouldn’t really say that. But there’s just something incredibly red-neck satisfying about the word “sumbitch” and I just don’t get to use it often enough!)

First you discuss how hard the wood is, ie, “real” wood vs pressboard, and whether your skillsaw will be enough for the job.

Then you talk about the merits of actually sawing this piece of furniture in half, and how you’re irreparably damaging a very nice piece of furniture for all time …. but really, what are your choices?

So the heck with it …. you start cutting.

At first your sister is all squinchy because she cannot believe the two men in the family — one of whom has an engineering degree and one of whom has a surveying degree, so they both have a firm grasp on the concept of space and structure and form and dimensions, couldn’t figure out a way to get that thing into the bedroom without sawing it in two …….

But eventually she comes ’round to your OCD ways, and even volunteers to hold the wet-vac hose while the cutting is going on. (Notice *I* am not doing anything? Besides documenting the entire process with photos for posterity’s sake, of course. We all have our special talents, after all …..)

(Did I mention that my brother in law was diagnosed with walking pneumonia earlier this week? I’m sure the flying wood particles were especially helpful to his lungs.)

Holy canisters of Pledge, Batman! Had we dusted under the television since we moved here???? Ummmmmm, apparently not. But look! They got the sumbitch sawed in half!!! And since Cliff only coughed up ONE lung, and he has two, then everything is ok!!

And after moving both halves into the bedroom and reassembling, you can hardly tell any damage was done.

I owe my brother-in-law a very expensive thank you gift. Something perhaps nicer than the brownie sundaes I made for their whole family before they left. Because while the entertainment center was freakin’ HUGE, it was the 37 inch console television that weighed 400 pounds and gave him a hernia, moving it. Kelly and I were both trying to help (but not succeeding, since we are basically puny little wimps delicate flowers) and we were ALL trying to keep Blaine from having to lift anything (what with the radiation and all …… lightweight that he is) and so basically my brother in law wound up doing everything. Walking pneumonia and all.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, before I can shop for his gift it appears I have some dusting to do.

PS. As an aside, this is the first time in twenty-one and a half years of marriage that Blaine and I have had a television in our master bedroom. I don’t know whether to be sad because it appears as though the honeymoon phase is truly over, or to be thrilled because now I can watch Dancing with the Stars, roll over and go to sleep!

No lie, this is the room the previous owners used for storage. Rubbermaid bins, paint cans, holiday decorations, etc. We looked around at the camping equipment, mattresses, ice chests and cardboard boxes, and thought, “Hey, we could put a kid in here!” And so we did. I mean, when you buy a house that only has two bedrooms, and there are five people in your family, a little creativity is in order. Even if the bedrooms are the size of Alaska.

We left the storage shelves attached to the walls and Kellen uses those as his “closet”. There’s plenty of room for his bed, bookshelf, stuffed animals, toys, and lots and lots of space in the middle for him to play. If he WOULD play upstairs, that is, which he won’t anymore, because apparently the kids were channel surfing the other day and ran across the movie “Chucky, or whatever the hell that movie is with that demonic little doll, and now none of them will go upstairs. Ever. For anything. Something tells me I’ll be learning to program the remote and block certain channels and certain shows in the near future, unless I enjoy sleeping with all three kids in my room (which I do not, just for the record) or enjoy making thirty-seven trips a day up the stairs with the kids because they are too frightened to go by themselves (repeat …. Do not enjoy.)

So anyway, here are some photos of Kellen’s closet bedroom.

What I find interesting is that door at the other end of Kellen’s room? That’s a door to another storage closet. One that separates the closet-closet from the storage space in the attic. Just how many dead bodies did they think we were planning to keep up here, anyway?

And before you feel too sorry for Kellen, having to stay in a closet, for goodness’ sake, let me point out that his “closet”, while not only bigger than my first apartment, is also directly connected to the upstairs living area/game room.

So he has immediate access to the sofas, television, dvd, vcr, Wii, karaoke machine, games, books, and treadmill. And we have an air hockey table, but can’t fit it up the damn stairs. I mean, all he needs is a mini fridge and it would be nicer than my freshman dorm room at college!

In all seriousness, we do plan on having some remodeling work done. We want to close up the wall between his room and the game room and put a door or double door between them, so he can have his privacy as he gets older. We want to close in the shelving units and make a “real” closet for him to use, replace the carpet, and {thinking big} we’d love to add in a 3/4 bathroom for his personal use. As it is now, he has to walk through the game room, across the hall, and through the girls’ bedroom to use the bathroom there. Once the girl’s rooms are separated (why yes, that is my face, with flashing dollar signs for eyeballs, considering all the work we want to do) it will be harder for him to use their restroom, and it seems a little cruel to tell him he has to hold it until he can get downstairs in the middle of the night.

But, until we win the lottery, he’ll be trudging across the upstairs to potty. And sleeping in a closet.

Do I love our new house? Love, love, love it with all of my heart and want to marry it? No. No partly because I am a bitter hag who wanted to build my own house with my own floor plans on our own acre of land outside the school district and I just can’t let go of the dream and get over it and instead I’ll nurse this burning ember of a grudge until the day I die …… and partly because this house isn’t anything like what we **would have** built ourselves.

The previous owners (who I am totally NOT going to bag on because although I don’t know them personally, we do have quite a few mutual friends and I just KNOW anything negative I might say would get right back to them …. Such is the joy of living in a small town**) bought this house in its original state, and remodeled it and added on to get something bigger; something a little more modern. The realtor told us they tore it down to the studs ….. the neighbor told me they didn’t. I don’t know which story is true, but overall, they managed to build a lovely home; it’s only four years old, and we are enjoying it very much.

But — {you knew there would be a but, didn’t you?} There are parts of this house that possibly worked better for their family of three than for our family of five. The longer we are in it, the more things I see that are or are not working for us. And therefore, we have a laundry list of work we would like to eventually do to the place ourselves. Some projects are very small … a few are medium …. And a few are big. Can we live comfortably here in the meantime? Yes, easily, although I will bitch until my dying day that there is not one of those up and down shelves in the kitchen to easily store cookie and baking sheets. You know what I’m talking about? So instead I have to stack them horizontally on top of one another and it’s really heavy and awkward to pull out your muffin pan, or pizza baking stone, or whatever, because no matter which one you want it is inevitably on the bottom underneath all the others which you then have to drag out as well, such is Murphy’s Law …. (see Small House Renovation Project #1: Build Vertical Shelf Cabinet Area Thing in Kitchen to stack cookie sheets the proper way.)

One of the first, if not THE first, project we will undertake (code for: when we get the money) is the bedroom the girls are sharing. Interestingly, despite its size, this is only a 2-bedroom house. Both bedrooms are big, but one is the downstairs master and one is the upstairs bedroom that the girls are sharing. Kellen is sleeping in the storage room, although when I show you pictures of it, you won’t think it’s quite as pathetic as it sounds, and please don’t call Child Protective Services until I have a chance to explain.

Back to the girls. They are not happy sharing a room. And although they have plenty of space, you know what? I don’t blame them. I hated sharing a room with my sister growing up, too. We also had a room that my parents had added on to, so it was nice-sized, but we got on each other’s nerves and in each other’s space and in each other’s THINGS. The next-to-the-final-straw was the day I went to school and saw her best friend Stephanie with a cute shirt on, and I said, “Hey, Stephanie, cute shirt! I have one just like it!” and she smiled and said, “I know, this is yours.” The final, FINAL straw was the day that her boyfriend came to school wearing my most prized possession, a concert t-shirt from the 1984 Adam Ant Goody Two Shoes tour, that he had the audacity to CUT THE SLEEVES OUT OF, what kind of jackass cuts the sleeves off a concert t-shirt that doesn’t even BELONG TO HIM!?!?!? (Why no, I’m not still holding a grudge, why do you ask?) THAT was the day I decided I needed my own space, and ultimately, why if our girls really want their own rooms, we will try our best to make it happen. And I think the room they are in now is big enough that we can make it work. Here, you judge for yourselves:

See? Plenty of space for the girls to hang out, just reading books** (**photo totally staged) and relax.

Lots of space, the whole of one wall, for racks and shelves for clothing and shoes.

In fact, I have both their summer and winter clothes hanging here, and plenty of room left over. No more Rubbermaid bins of off-season clothes out in the garage for us! (Thank goodness, too, because how much of a hassle is that? And you always seem to get a cold front or warm front the day AFTER you swap out the clothes, you know what I mean?? And then you’re out there digging through the bins for something to wear …. Such a headache.)

There’s also enough room that they each have their own dresser for underwear, pajamas, swimsuits, etc.

And even another wall of shelves for things like books, trophies, hats, stuffed animals, etc. Really, whatever they might want to fit in here for the two of them. Yep, lots and lots of room for their stuff in this bedroom.

Wait, what’s that you say? This doesn’t look like a bedroom? There’s something missing????

OH, you mean like BEDS!?!?!?!?!?

Yeah, well, that’s because —- (are you ready for this?) That’s because this is their CLOSET. Their closet, which I swear on the latest Jodi Piccoult, is 14 x 11 and is bigger than the entire bedroom either of them had in our previous house. In fact, I think it might be bigger than MY bedroom in the previous house.

You want to see the actual bedroom?

THIS is the actual bedroom! The door on the back far right is the door to the closet.

22 x 20 feet of emptiness, because my two girls combined don’t have enough crap to fill it up. Which I guess is a good thing, right? This is Brayden’s “side” ….

… and this is Kendrie’s “side”, although when you’re dealing with a room this size, it sounds silly to be dibbing on which “side” is yours.

And this is the view of the bedroom from the closet door. Sadly, I don’t have a wide-angle lens on my camera so I’m not sure these pictures will even do justice to the space.

And of course, that’s not including the full bath that is opposite the closet.

Our initial plan was to just put a partition down the middle of the room, with both ends open, so each girl could easily walk to the closet or bathroom, but still have their privacy. But then we realized that would simply make it two long skinny rooms, and we would still have all that extra closet space.

So now we’re leaning more towards taking out the wall to the closet and making two distinct rooms, so each girl can have her own bedroom. And making another door at the far end of the bathroom, so Kendrie could get to the bathroom without having to walk through Brayden’s room.

So I guess technically I’m not sure if this qualifies as a medium project, or a large project. It’s large-scale, to be sure, but overall I don’t think it would be Toooooo complicated (said the girl who can’t even hang a picture straight) since it wouldn’t involve any plumbing, and not much electrical. It’s basically nothing more than moving a few walls, adding a few doorways, and building closets in each room since the “old” closet would now be part of a “new” room. Clear as mud?

I don’t know … what do you think? Any home-improvement gurus out there with a suggestion on how we can maximize this space, without wasting any of it? I’d love to hear from you.

Until then, I’ll be in the kitchen, grumbling about my cookie sheets.

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**I went to a funeral yesterday. A friend (and classmate my entire life) mother passed away and while I know a funeral is not the proper place or time for old-school reunions, both my 4th grade and 5th grade teachers were there — And my junior high counselor — And many parents of friends of mine. And my fifth grade teacher said of course she remembered me, I was the young girl with the beautiful blonde hair, and I said yes, but that was thirty years ago and I have to pay for the blond now and quite frankly, I’m not sure she got the joke — but my gosh, how cool is it to live in a small town???

The prop in question: The writing desk I just purchased.

The conditions: Blaine’s hair, standing on end. Well, if he had enough to stand on end, that is.

Blaine: No, of course I don’t **mind** putting it together for you. It’s just that it’s never as easy as they say it’s going to be. This is the third or fourth piece of some-assembly-required furniture that you’ve bought since we moved here. It takes, like, all day to put them together, and it never makes sense, and I always wind up with an extra bracket or a missing screw or a piece of the instruction booklet is torn out, or something! This shit makes me crazy!

Kristie: Well, I’m sure it will look great when it’s done; you always do a really good job.

Blaine: Yeah, if I don’t lose my mind first.

Kristie: Hopefully this one will go smoothly and will only take a short time.

Blaine: Uh-huh. And maybe MONKEYS will fly out of my butt.

Kristie: Well, when they do, hand them a hammer and a screwdriver and tell them to get cracking.