Progress...

OK, so I've decided that I would rather paint a picture than a room.  The longer we live here, the more I notice the shortcuts the previous owners took in their home improvement efforts.  Nothing major, and nothing unfixable, but we did discover that they spray painted the refrigerator black to match the other appliances.  So now, any magnets we have up remove paint if they are moved, and the white shows through.  They didn't do a lot of surface prep before they painted walls, and there are several areas in several rooms where it looks like they painted directly over spackle, without sanding first.  There is paint on the hinges on the back door (3 different colors, in fact!).  Before I started painting myself, I was a bit disgruntled at finding these things, but now that I've started on the kitchen, I must admit that my results aren't a whole lot better so far!  I have sanded, and I did clean the walls before I started painting.  I ordered 2 quarts of flat ceiling paint  and 2 quarts of semi gloss in a different shade for my walls.  Even though I had read that if you are using 2 cans, you should mix them together to prevent paint shade variance, I of course knew better.  When I was 3/4's of the way done with the ceiling, I opened the other can that was supposed to be ceiling paint, only to discover that it was tinted more of the wall color.  I used every last drop of paint from the first can, and touched up a few areas with the second can, hoping it wouldn't be noticeable.  It is.  So now I will be painting the entire ceiling again!  Argh. 

Tim left today for CO Springs (ironic, isn't it, if you've read my prior posts about Kathy going to Denver and our hope we'd be stationed there?).  He will be heading up an exercise next year, and has the first meetings this week to start the planning process.  I hope he enjoys his week.  I would like to accomplish several things around here while he is gone (I am drinking coffee right now so I can work while the kids are sleeping).  I have purchased a tatouage jungle mural to put up in Shane and Mick's room and the little girls' room is going to have a tree house theme, which I still have to implement.  Besides finishing the  kitchen!  It would make him happy to return and see the garage in better shape than when he left, too, so I am going to have Jack assemble the shelving and maybe we'll actually be able to get two cars in there this winter!

We had lots of visitors this past week/weekend.  Friends stopped in on their way to NC from NY.  Colleen was happy to have a few hours to play with her friend.  I went to dinner Friday night with two old neighbors from 10 years ago - my realtor being one, and the other is a reserve USMC Col who was in town for drill.  She and her husband have 8 kids.  It was so much fun to catch up.  On Saturday, a friend of mine from high school came with his wife, her son, and their daughter, for dinner.  I hadn't seen him in 14 years and had never met his wife and kids.  Our other friends from Fredericksburg came for dinner, too, and the kids had fun night swimming while the grown ups visited.  It is so rewarding to keep in touch with old friends, and to see each other again after so much time.  I still sometimes have a hard time figuring out when exactly I became one of the grown-ups! 

Katie is currently in Falls Church, staying with her best friend from 2 years ago.  Her family just moved to the area from CA, and will be here for at least a year.  I am glad Katie is getting to spend time with them.  This family had a positive impact on her when we knew them in Camp Lejeune.  She texted me from the Smithsonian museum of Art in DC this afternoon.  I am glad she's having fun.  I've been worried that her summer has been a disappointment, and that she is just biding time till she moves in October.  I am sure she has lots of mixed emotions about a lot of things right now.  I wish she and I were closer and that she confided in me.  I am thankful she has a good friend here now that she can talk to.

I need to hear prayers and tuck kids in so I can get some work done!