So I’m three weekends into our home renovation project. With the dumpster finally gone, it was time to stop tearing things apart and start putting them back together. I’m finding things were moving a little slower than I had expected though. I think it’s because I don’t have a concrete deadline other than ‘as soon as possible.’ But even though it’s moving slower than I’d like, we are still making progress. Each weekend starts with coffee, donuts, and big hopes.
STRIPPING THE WALLPAPER
For as long as I can remember, it seems like long Holiday weekends were reserved for doing some sort of house project. Whether it was landscaping, painting the fence, digging a trench, building a deck, tearing down a deck, remodeling a kitchen, or hand scrubbing the aluminum siding, my family always had something going on. It was mostly work at my parent’s house, but also by grandma’s, and my grandpa’s house too. And then as we got older, add in my brother’s house, and now mine. So while most of my friends would be spending this Memorial Day weekend attending the local Polish festival, going to the movies, having family BBQs or attending cool events called Meat Fest, I would be tearing apart my house.
TRASH TO CASH
I’ve never had my own garage sale before. I’ve only helped out my folks a little bit when they had one. The thought of having a garage sale made me want to puke. It sounded like a big hassle and way too much work. I’d rather just donate the things that had some value and pitch the rest. And with Aya being Japanese, the whole garage sale concept was completely foreign to her. “People sell their old junk? And there’s people who pay money for it!?” But last fall my parents held a garage sale and we included a few items of our’s after we cleaned the basement, and we made forty bucks! Feeling that cash in my hands felt great and I wanted more. If we made forty bucks just selling that small amount of junk, how much could we make if we cleaned out the garage, the basement, and the kitchen!? We decided then that we would hold our own garage sale in the spring.
WHERE’S MY FLOWERS?
Today is Mother’s Day and all my mom friends are going to be getting breakfast in bed, foot rubs, spa gift cards, and bouquets of flowers. That’s great and all, but what about me!? I take care of Ellie all day, every day. I make her food and feed her. I put her down for naps (which I busted my butt to be able to do). I dress her, read her books, and take her for walks. Play dates, mallwalking, story time, I do it all. I cook, I clean, and I do the laundry. So I have one question. Where’s my freakin’ flowers!?
THE ELITE EIGHT
Every Easter my family has an Easter egg cracking contest. This is when we go head to head, egg shell to egg shell, and try to crack the other person’s egg. I used to think everybody did this when I was young. And when I found out we were the only ones, I thought everybody else was crazy. As I get older, I’m finding out we are the crazy ones. I guess this is an old Polish tradition. I don’t claim to know the history, but according to Google it’s an Eastern European thing. So I know there are other people who crack their eggs, just nobody I know.