had extra bad colds, the kind where no one goes to school, no one does any
laundry and everyone is too kvetchy to even take a nap.
Thankfully, the tissue avalanche has come to an (almost) end, the three
year old is back in her beloved nursery classroom and the baby is, if not off my
lap for an entire minute, at least not hanging from my neck and crying "stand
up, stand up" because she's only happy when one of stands and holds her.
So what would you do after finally seeing there might be a light at the end
of the Bad Cold Tunnel? Take a shower? Sit and look at a wall? Maybe make a cup
of hot chocolate and not share it? All good ideas. Not me. I mean, I did have a
hot chocolate, but that's neither here nor there. No, what did I do? Last night,
I painted the basement. Well, really, I primed it, with my new love, Odorless
Kilz White Primer.
After spending the entire week with two of the kids on the couch,
surrounded by tissues and toys that have been Lysoled, I realized that even
though I really don't want to throw any money into making a basement playroom,
especially in a basement that is somewhat prone to flooding when it rains, I
realized that I have no choice. So I am going to do this as efficiently, as
quickly and as inexpensively (read: on the cheapo scale) as possible. And I know
myself, if I think too much, nothing gets done so I'm just going to jump in and do it.
And this is how I came to be standing in the basement at 9:30pm on a Sunday
wearing and an old and ripped t-shirt and Josh's old sweatpants that have lost
all the elastic - have you ever tried to paint while holding your pants up? -
looking at the newly primed walls of my basement. It looks better already.
I wanted to show you what the basement looked like before, but I forgot to take a picture.
Sadly, this is what the basement looks like after it's been cleaned up and after we threw
out bags and bags of stuff and moved everything to the middle of the room.
that would be silly.
But I will update you as the project continues.
And how does this relate to my Happiness Project that I
had decided to start thinking about? The first chapter of that book talks about
creating energy in your life, and doing that by releasing things that are
bogging you down and making you drag your feet everyday. And clutter is at the
top of my list. And if the consequence of cleaning out the basement is having to
paint it, so be it. It's worth it. So far. I haven't had to fight with that roll
of blue painter's tape yet.