So, now I reno'd the dining room

I've been obsessed with painting and decorating again. I tackled the dining room over Reading Week, with help from Pynchon and my dad and a soundtrack of cowbells from the Olympic skiing events I played in the background for company.

From this:

We went to this:


You seemed to like my breakdown of the kitchen reno, where I told you what I did and what it cost and scoffed at the shelter and lifestyle magazines' idea of 'low cost' versus my somewhat more parsimonious one. So I'll do that again!

First, though, some more photos of the finished space. I'm just moving from one corner of room, sequentially around to the other three, okay? Think of it as a cheapo 360 degree tour ;-) These were all taken during the daytime:




What I did (and Pynchon did, and my dad did), and what it cost (cash money, and time):

1. We changed the lighting fixtures. The one fixture in the room was that dated 70s thing. It was too small, used weird bulbs, and was in the dead middle of the room. We bought two brushed-nickel and frosted glass fixtures at Crappy Tire for $40 (sconce--but that came with us from our other house, so I'm not counting it!) and $70 (chandelier). Electricians created a spot for the sconce over the sideboard, and moved the chandelier so that it was centred with the dining table, not with the room. Both fixtures are controlled by dimmers. The electrical work probably cost close to $200, because getting the fixtures where I wanted turned out to be a bit of a fiasco. Totally worth it though. Total for lighting: $270.

2. We painted*. This took a HUGE amount of time. Probably 30-40 hours. The trim, as ever, was a total pain in the ass: sand, wash, prime, three coats of white paint. The other thing with painting dark wood trim white, is that once you do, you see that the wood (over 93 years) has shrunk away from the floor, the walls, and all the joints are gappy. This is when you get your dad to come visit, and fill all the blessed gaps with silicone caulking that then needs painting. Results totally worth it, though. The white is Polar Bear by Behr, in a semi-gloss.The brown on the wall is Oat Straw, the same colour we used in the living room, in a flat enamel finish that is already proving itself nicely washable. Hooray! Two cans of paint, and a portion of the giant bucket of primer: $60 (got the paint 25% off this summer ...)

3. We added storage. The antique sideboard came with us from Edmonton to the apartment, then the first house, and now here. We keep our table linens in it, and the fancy cutlery. The smaller wood cabinet is used for hiding sunglasses and CDs and my chequebook and Pynchon's doodads and a bunch of Munchkin's toys. It's a Billy bookshelf from Ikea ($79), with doors (2 x $40, plus brushed nickel Attest knobs, $8). So we forked out $167 for storage: but no more clutter? Priceless.

4. We decorated. The room is dark. It faces northeast and is pretty grim most of the time -- that's not good because this is the central room, the hub, of our main floor. So the idea was to maximise the light by adding fixtures, painting out the dark trim, and using art to brighten up the room with colour and bounce the light around. The three prints above the sideboard came with us from the other house; it's framed calendar art. The big silver frame was $19 at Ikea, and is framing a sparkly and fun .... piece of wrapping paper ($4). The two abstract paintings bring me joy unaccountable, but the big one was $70 at Ikea and the smaller one (above the stereo) was $60 at Bouclair. Those brown-toned flower paintings flanking the window are going to go somewhere else soon: in their place, two 2' by 3' silver frames, with more wrapping paper in them, in a sort of green wallpaper patter (all in, $70). Speaking of the window, I removed the ancient drapes and hung simple, wide, 'faux bois' white blinds: $70. The piece de resistance up is the big silver mirror, $60 at Bouclair. Munchkin came to help me pick it out. She's a great helper:

Oh right! I bought a plant ($20) and a white ceramic pot ($30) for the corner, too. Decorating total: $400.

So that's the dining room! Since we've modernised the paint colours and hung modern / contemporary art and fixtures, our existing dark wood sideboard and dining set don't seem so overwhelming dark. And the room is so much brighter that the electrician and the cleaning lady both spontaneously remarked on it when they walked it.

Total total? Labout total? 9 days of one-and-off work by me, Pynchon, and dad. Money cost: $900, that we paid out in stages over about 2 years (electrical in 2008, paint and storage in 2009, decorating items 2010).

Now I need a drink of wine. You?

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* painted: First, Pynchon had to repair the window wall--it's an exterior wall, obviously, and since we had a MILLION HOLES drilled in our exterior walls to have them insulted. So he sanded and patched, and sanded again. Dirty work.

And how was your day?

"Mom, Mom!" she interjects, as I take a break from telling Pynchon about something I read in the paper earlier to take a bite of my salad.

"Mom! Is it my turn to talk?"

"Sure. What would you like to talk about?"

"Um ... um ... Today-I-went-to-preschool-and-I-played-and-played-and-then-we-had-snack-and-when-we-went-outside-I-fell-down-but-it-was-okay-I-laughed."

She pauses. Takes a bite of cheese. Reflects.

"Tell me about your day, Mom."

We eat supper together almost every night, and we've consciously been working on table manners: asking for more milk by saying "please," using cutlery, waiting until everyone is seated before you start, wiping your fingers on a napkin instead of the table. I'm surprised to discover that at the same time we've been teaching her a more subtle set of skills. Munchkin is learning the give and take of conversation, its rhythms and pauses, the scripts that orchestrate who gets to speak, when, and about what. At dinner, we all take turns speaking. At dinner, the main topic of conversation is "your day" and speech is invited by direct questions to that effect.

So sophisticated is her understanding of the operations of mealtime that she even knows that breakfast is something different: at breakfast, everyone reads the newspaper, including Munchkin. If by 'read', you mean demand the section of the paper that has the most interesting picture on it, and have it propped up nice and high in front of you so you can make up stories about it.

Wow. And that's what family meals are for, I guess. Civilizing our barbarian toddlers while ingesting home cooked meals that feature some kind of green thing along with the cheese, the barbarian toddlers somehow and suddenly learning how to divvy up the morning paper and how to listen to mommy rant about her students.

When the fever breaks

Munchkin is adjusting to my return to normal daily family life. She is adjusting, as I begin to see is her pattern, by freaking out with abandonment issues after the absent parent is once more firmly embraced into the crush of daily family life.

That is, she misses me with great passion and hurling cries now that I'm home again.

I went to bed so early last night that I wound up sleeping in the guest room by myself. I awoke at 4 to sobbing cries of "Mommmmmm-eeeeeee". She pulled me down close to her, whispered in my ear, brokenly.

"Mommy, I missed you so much when you went to yoga, I was so worried. Mom, I missed you."

I tucked her up tight, covered her gently, shushed softly in her ear. But as soon as I crawled back into bed, I could hear her crying again, like her heart was broken. After a couple of rounds of this, feeling like she really did miss me and that was the problem, I asked, "Do you want to come sleep with Mommy tonight?" Like a shot, she leapt out of bed, grabbing her pillow and heading straight out into the hallway. She wrapped herself tight around me, sobs quieted and breathing getting deeper. I thought she would fall asleep right away.

She didn't. For the next 90 minutes, she lay there, quiet and awake, stroking my face and neck with her palm, with a fingertip, with the back of her hand. With her cheeks, even. She tucked her feet up between my thighs, snuggled her belly up close to mine. Every now and again she'd sit up and exclaim, "Oh Mommy, I love you soooo much," and then lie down again. Every now and again I'd slit one of my eyes open to see if she was asleep, only to find her an inch away from me, with a blissed out smile on her face. She pulled one of my arms up and around her, tucked my fingers under her ear and nuzzled me.

It took me back. The guest bed is where she and I used to sleep right after she was born, breastfeeding through the night and sleeping in spurts. She didn't much like me to hold her then. She was squirmy and angry and this affection now, in the night, on this bed, is all I could have dreamed of then, my barfy colicky squirmy 9 pounder. She feels surprisingly big in bed now, obviously not like sleeping next to Pynchon but not at all like sleeping with that baby three years ago. Except maybe for the smell, and maybe the softness of her hair.

As she patted and rubbed and sniffed and snuggled me, I realized that I needed it as much as she did. We were skin-hungry for each other, I think, that mother-daughter connection of touch that has anchored us. Sometimes the kids know best, know when some limit has been breached, and just what to do to make it right again.

Happy Birthday, Self!

So, I'm 37 now.

Last year we had a great big houseparty for 40 people, with a bartender, a big cake, and all the furniture pushed back to the walls, rented glassware, the works. We went smaller this year, a dinner for 14 at a new restaurant just around the corner from here. The smaller scale gave me more of a chance to reflect, first and foremost that I am truly blessed in my friends, and next that Pynchon and I have been here in Small City for six years, and have cobbled together a community of friends from three different workplaces, some neighbours, friends from before who find themselves here, and all the partners of same. People in their 20s; people in their 50s, and a good sampling in between. That feels good.

I was thinking also, naturally on this sort of occasion, I think, about, well, me. 37! I guess I am who I am going to become, mostly, and I'm intrigued by the continuities and discontinuities of all these years of Mimi-ness.

Different? I'm much more confident now than I used to be and this has the paradoxical but welcome effect of leaving me freer to be quiet, to hang back, to listen. We ENTJs, when nervous or insecure, tend rather to become bossy or strident, but a happy ENTJ can, I'm glad to report, can just sit back and cool out. God, it's nice to not always feel compelled to put myself in charge of things that, frankly, don't really need or benefit from hierarchical leadership.

The same? I've never had much of a social filter, or a well developed sense of decorum. I'm 37 and I still cannot prevent myself from gleefully responding to a compliment on my dress that I bought it for 29$ at Zellers. My mom visibly flinches in my inner mind: "Just say THANK YOU. No one needs to KNOW that, Mimi!" It's not demurral or false modesty--I'll agree that yes, I look great, but isn't it just a kicker that the dress is from Zellers? And so CHEAP? I look somehow younger? It's the bra! Raise the boobs 3 inches, take 10 years off. (Can you hear my mom, now?) I just have never seen the point of hiding the man behind the curtain, Wizard of Oz style. And I still don't, I guess.

Weirder are the combination same/differents, two of which I have been ruminating on today.

Same / different 1: I have grown into my face and my body--they're not much different than they've ever been, really, only now my stage of life has caught up to their promise. I was the kinda kid about whom adults always remarked that I was 'old for my age'. Not mature, certainly, but somehow ... not channeling youth. No button nose, no chubby cheeks, no ingenuous credulity. Instead, I was all sarcasm, always, all strong nose, piercing eyes, and sharply angled cheekbones. On an eleven year old, or even a 20 year old, the effect can be jarring. Helps one get into bars underage, but otherwise jarring. In my 30s, I see that button noses and blooming cheeks do not look so appropriate on my demographic anymore. Suddenly my face is just right, a canvas best able to hang my subjectivity from. It's strong and dramatic and sophisticated, where before it was precocious and disconcerting. At 37, I don't mind looking Dietrich-esque in ways I did when I was 16. I still have a great big nose and very square shoulders, but it kinda works now.

Same / different 2: I have grown into my personality, my character--in my teens, you know, I had that not uncommon delusion that I was Something Special, Marked For Greatness, Without Fault but nevertheless Fantastically Misunderstood. In my twenties, by contrast, I became excruciatingly aware of my own faults. The fault-finding was kinda sweeping; it was a decade-long orgy of self-loathing, really. Amazingly, at 37, I find I'm somehow becoming able to see my own character with a clear eye ... and love myself anyways. Yeah, I'm not really good at playing ponies for 3 hours in a row; I'm always looking for a little escape, something to read. But I do play ponies happily and with total focus for 20 or 30 minute bursts, several times a day, and for someone like me, that's pretty damn good, really. Yeah, I'm naturaly kinda judgy and over-rational, but I bring a lot of integrity to my job as a result. I'm still really sarcastic and biting by nature, but it's developed over time into a more sophisticated and age-appropriate wit that is not unwelcome by others.

I'm growing into myself, it seems. And I'm learning how to be flawed and happy at the same time. Huh.

If that means I've got to take some wrinkles along with insight and self-acceptance, it's still a pretty good trade.

Push / Pull / Stretch / Snap

One of the alarms on my iPhone (you can edit and save a bunch of them, like you can teach your thermostat the difference between Wednesday and Sunday) is called, simply, "stupid fucking Monday." It is set for five am. And every Monday for the last four weeks, that's when I get up, at 5am. I sneak downstairs, work for an hour and a half, shower, gobble breakfast and head to work, usually before Pynchon and Munchkin wake up. I watch the sun come up from the café across the street from my off-campus teaching lab. The rest of the week is a little better--I get up at six, work for an hour, then wake everyone up and we all hustle in to work.

In a rotten confluence of circumstances, this semester I have drawn the short straw. On a very demanding committee that has big deadlines and big obligations for the entire month (think, 11 hour days and 4 hour meetings, and you'll have it about right). Teaching two new courses, so that in addition to the time spent actually teaching it, and grading, and meeting students, I'm also trying to put all the materials together fast enough to keep ahead of everyone. These two courses are in different locations, both off campus, and both with some administrative hurdles (one has no heat and the other has heat set to 'bikini model', for example). I work at 5am; I stay at work until after supper. I work on the weekends. I do my email on the phone waiting for the bus. I grade design homework on the laptop while 'watching' Diego with Munchkin.

I am, in short, desperately overscheduled and overstressed at work.

At home, I'm ... absent. And that wracks me with guilt, obviously. Pynchon is carrying the whole family on his own back and the whole enterprise is straining under the load.

I don't like living like this. I don't like complaining about it. So today, as my big committee finished its giant task, and freed up probably 12 or so hours in my work-week going forward, I'm turning the boat around.

It's the end of January. The end of the crazy month of finally getting my insomnia under control only to start forcing myself to keep the same hours as when I couldn't sleep. The end of frozen pizza, canned beans, grilled cheese, McDonald's, and KD for dinner. The end of complaining and crisis management.

My birthday is this weekend. I will be 37. We are celebrating with a big dinner party at a fancy new restaurant. I will wear high heels, drink a lot of gin, and feel myself buoyed up on the love of my friends. I am coming back to my blog writing and to my blog reading. I am remembering the simple pleasure of cooking supper for my family and sitting down to eat it with them, of taking 5 minutes out of the morning rush to play 'puppy' with Munchkin, barking and sniffing and rolling over.

It's good to be back.

How've you been?