and off we go....

Life is busy, but I find it hard to complain. For example yesterday, oh what a day...Kathryn and I started right in on painting the kitchen ceiling. Now we built this house a long time ago, we started back in the spring of 1990, and moved in a year later, when we were just expecting our sixth child, Aaron. Joseph was almost a year old when we moved in, and from a three bedroom mobile home with five kids to this big huge house...joy.

But...add eleven kids, let them be kids, have friends over, enjoy life...and things get run down. We have re-painted the kitchen a few times through the years, but the ceiling was never redone, and it needed it badly.

So Kathryn and I started on it, guess what? It's not fun rolling paint onto a ceiling. I thought it would just glide right on, but ouch and a half, it hurt my neck, I had to reload the roller after every swipe because the ceiling just sucked that paint right in. We decided not to prime it first because it's a big room and it seemed like way too much work. This turned out to be a bad decision because we ran out of paint when we were only a third done...so Camille and I had to make a trip to Lowe's. We were supposed to hurry but we got sidetracked looking at the faucets and appliances and sample kitchens, where we picked up some little countertop samples. We also spent too much time dreaming in the light fixture aisles. I bought new glass globes for the kitchen ceiling fan, because there were only two out of three still on it. I took the blades off it the other day and painted them with gray chalk paint, they don't look exactly fantastic, but are nicer than the white with gold trim that they were before. Anyway. We got our ceiling paint, and headed home.

The ceiling painting continued, and we played thankfulness games...I said at least we weren't building pyramids in Egypt in the blazing sun. Kap countered that blazing sun sounded nice.

Anyway...the three girls who go to school got home, and joined right in. We got the ceiling finished, started spackling spots in the kitchen, then couldn't find any sandpaper at all. I was covered in paint speckles, and did not want to get clean clothes on AGAIN and head to the store, so we made Joseph go to the hardware store in town.

The spackle got sanded, the walls wiped down, and the kitchen painting began as we cleaned up the ceiling paint mess. We had two rollers, and three edgers, with Jon, Char, and Cam as go-phers. They wiped up paint drops and got paper towels for us. Jon was the handyman with the screwdriver, he removed all the outlet covers and light switch plates, plus removed all the wall hangings and the coats from the hooks. He helped clear the counters and cover things with plastic.

The kids were getting hungry, and of course the kitchen was a disaster, no food was going to be prepared there. They talked about pizza until I realized that this indeed was the carrot to dangle before these helpers, to keep them enthusiastic. Okay, I said, when we get almost done, we'll order pizza and make Joe go pick it up. I sat down at 9 o'clock and had some chicken wings and yeah, I caved and ate some pizza. It wasn't carb night, but I didn't care. My neck and shoulders were on fire, and my feet needed to be put up, and we were watching, "Minions", which is so adorable and funny but also kind of scary.

This fine morning, of course I notice places we missed and places were paint got slopped and not cleaned up. The coats are all in a pile on the living room chair, and the outlet covers and light switch covers need to be put back on. All the pictures need to be rehung, and the curtains, which I washed in the midst of all the painting fun, are hanging over the back of a chair, waiting to be ironed, and hung on new curtain rods which I haven't purchased yet, the old ones were bent.

I still want to paint the wood trim on the windows white, but that can wait for another day.

The cabinets are still going to have a makeover, and then the countertops, but those things will also wait for a bit.

The girls are not ready for another project quite yet either. But I am so optimistic about the next few things because I know they are good workers. Not one of them got mad and quit, and believe me, there were little arguments. There was also singing, loud and silly. We all belted out some Abba, Wa Wa, Waterloo! It sounds pretty good sung at the top of the lungs. Every few minutes someone would start singing something, and Sonja also educated us all about her favorite soccer teams and players.

When I told them about the cabinet project, and what it would entail, they were actually all for it. Kathryn and Evelyn are leaving for their week in California on Monday, so I think we'll wait for their return.

And this weekend is packed full already. I promised Kathryn a trip to the big mall in the big city to get a new dress for California, and we are watching Lydia this afternoon. Then also in the afternoon, I am going shopping with Mirielle for food for a church thing on Sunday. Then tomorrow, Luke Bryant is performing at the Dome, and we are working at the concession stand.

I think I had better get moving. Kathryn is up and doing things like dishes and sweeping because she wants to get going to the dreaded mall....