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Oh, no he didn’t!
I’ve sung my hubby’s praises on this blog before. I’ve told you why he’s so awesome, and showed you cute things he’s done, and the great Mother’s Day gift he gave me. Despite the picture I may paint here (my husband is a lot of wonderful things…but) he’s far from perfect. There are plenty of things that he does that leave me scratching my head or screaming at the top of my lungs…I just try to leave it off of the blog. Today is not one of those days, my friends.
On Friday night Adaline spent the night at my mom’s house. I woke up with a sore throat and decided to spend the day in bed. Cool Daddy had the weekend off so he was planning on painting our front steps and porch. I told him to get a color like what we already had…white with the slightest hint of blue. At some point my mom called to say that Adaline was upset and was asking for me, and since I only live a block away I tossed on some clothes to walk over to my mom’s house. I knew that I’d need to go out the back door so as not to walk on the freshly painted porch…but I decided to pop my head out of the front door to make sure my hubby had his keys. I opened the front door and saw this…
(Insert theme music from Physco here)
And then there was this
And this
Oh, yes. It wraps around the side of the house!
If this color looks familiar to you but you can’t put your finger on where you’ve seen it, let me help you.
Maybe it was here…
Or here…
Or even here…
What the…?
When I opened up the door and took a look at the paint on the porch and then looked at my husband. He had his faced all scrunched up and was bracing himself for an ear-lashing from me. “What? Why? I said white! Oh my goodness…why did you keep painting all of this, you wasted an entire day!” He gave me reasons such as, “It looked gray on the paint chip (??? I asked for white!), I thought it would lighten up as it dried (And turn to white?), I thought I should ask you to come and look at it and then I decided not to (Because your brain fell out of your ear?).
Just to give you a visual of what the previous porch color was…
Yeah, it’s just a tad off. 😉
Even though my hubby was still hard at work painting when I opened the door to this catastrophe, once I had indeed confirmed that it looked awful he was immediately embarrassed and wanted to go to the hardware store right away to get new paint before too many neighbors saw the porch. Naturally I said, “You are never picking out paint colors alone again.” So after stopping by my mom’s house to console Adaline and fill my mom in on the porch paint madness, I…with the sore throat, pregnant, having not showered yet that day, while it was 90 degrees outside…went with my husband to the hardware store.
Before we left for the hardware store I had to take photos…and since my husband was suddenly so embarrassed I hung a sign before we left lest any passerby thought we intentionally painted our porch that color (even though we sorta did).
The note reads:
Yeah, that’s NOT the right color!
(Never let Papa Smurf paint your porch!)
He showed me the paint chip he’d selected.
Yes that indeed looks very gray
(or not at all…and again I asked for “white”)
This is the color that I selected.
And here they are together.
When we got home from the store that evening my husband started putting the first coat on right away. He worked until it was dark out and I think he got everything covered with at least one coat. The next day he finished it up and here it is now…
Tada!
I had him replace the flowers in the front too since I didn’t care for the previous ones he planted over a month ago. I think the petunias look great, but it’s kinda hard to see in this light 😦
Now he has to find a way to get the blue paint off of the bricks so that it doesn’t look as though a Smurf was squashed on our sidewalk.
Believe it or not I wasn’t actually mad, I was mostly…confused.
And mildly amused…mildly.
When I went back upstairs that night before he went outside to repaint the porch he said, “I love you!” and I said, “I love you, too. Thanks for the blog post.”
This post is linked to…
3.) A bad day.
Did you see last week’s Writer’s Workshop post?
Read about 10 (Obscure) Shows I’d Like to Make a Comeback!
Related Posts:
*Large Marge Update 2: Some more stair/porch related stuff.
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Bye-Bye Betty Bride
When I was born my maternal grandmother started a porcelain doll collection for me. Every year on my birthday and Christmas I would receive a new doll. When I was four years old I still had a bad thumb-sucking habit. I used to rub something silky, like the edging of a blanket, between my fingers and suck my thumb. I’d been known to reach up my paternal grandma’s skirt at church and grab on to her slip and suck my thumb. I had a habit that needed to be broken. I don’t remember how far into the “let’s break Jenny of her thumb-sucking habit” process we were when my aunt came up with an idea. My aunt told me that if I stopped sucking my thumb she would buy me a porcelain doll. I don’t recall whether or not I had seen the particular doll that I wanted before the offer was made or if she took me to the store afterwards to pick out my “goal doll”. All I remember is that before I had completely broken the habit I already had a specific bride doll in mind. I think that it was on display in a Hallmark store and little 4-year-old me thought that she was so pretty. I remember lying in my bed at night thinking, “I could suck my thumb and no one would see me!” and then my mom would call from downstairs, “Get that thumb out of your mouth!” (How did she know?!) I knew that I was going to have to do this honestly if I wanted to get my doll. I successfully quit sucking my thumb and the doll became mine. I named her Betty… Betty the Bride (I know, I’m so creative, right?! Don’t be jealous of my sweet, sweet naming skills.).
After years passed by I realized that Betty wasn’t as pretty as I thought she was. She was, in fact, pretty creepy. She looked like she could be the main character in a thriller about a doll that was possessed. Still, I kept her and had no plans of ever getting rid of her…4 year old me would’ve been so sad. I’d had her so long that despite her creepiness, she never gave me any nightmares 🙂
Now, I’m going to show you the only picture I have of Betty and I while I was child and I’m going to need you to focus. Remember, this is about Betty. It’s not about the Grand Ole Opry hair-do that is trying to eat my face or the giant red bow embellishing it, nor is it about the Pepto Bismal pink bedroom walls. It’s all about me holding Betty.
Have you regained your composure? Good, we can move on.
Last Saturday my mom was all like, “Hey, get over here and clean all of your crap out of my attic! Mmkay?!” asked me if I could help her clean out her attic. My mom is a thrower-outer and I’m a hoarder of memories saver. When we came across darling old Betty in a box my mom asked if I was still going to keep that ugly creepy doll. Naturally I told her “yes!”. We were going to move her into a different box and my mom picked her up horizontally with one hand under her head to hand her to me. Then we heard a crack…Betty’s face popped off!
While no tears were shed and I knew that it gave me a reason to part with her, I was still mildly upset that my mom broke her. She said that she barely touched her and naturally I responded with, “You don’t pick a doll up by the porcelain! You should’ve grabbed her torso!” (duh!) and my mom apologized although she mostly found it funny. I knew that I was going to get rid of Betty. There was no point, despite the sentiment, to attempt to glue her back together just to stick her back into storage. So I did what any weird sane person would do and took a bunch photos so that I could preserve my memory of Betty the Bride.
If she didn’t appear creepy and possessed before…check her out now with her head detached!
My mom clearly snapped her neck on purpose, what with her hands as hot as the blazing surface of the sun and her crazy herculean kung fu grip, she could’ve done it subconsciously with very little effort. I was certain that she was the one to blame.
But then…
When I was looking through the photos that I’d taken of Betty I noticed something. I came across Betty in a box with another doll while my mom wasn’t even in the attic. I snapped a picture of her lying in the box and then moved on to other things. If you look closely (okay, you don’t even need to look that closely) at the photo you can see a white crack on the right side of Betty’s face (left in the photo). I didn’t notice it when I had seen her in the box, but I noticed it in the picture. Betty’s face had already snapped off at some point while in storage. Whether it was from age, heat, or other boxes carelessly being stacked on top…her face was broken before my mom ever touched her.
Well. I guess I owe my mom an apology.
Mom, I’m sorry that I accused you of ruthlessly killing Betty in cold porcelain. I know that you didn’t do it right then and I hope that you can forgive me.
To be honest, I’m a little glad that I can get rid of her without any guilt or regret (Betty, not my mom ;)).
Goodbye, Betty! You were dearly loved and you will be dearly missed. Thank you for inspiring me to stop sucking my thumb (I tried it again in Middle School just for kicks and hated it!). Thank you for watching over me all of those years with your eerie, blinkless stare. Your memory will now live on in the blogosphere forever.
Do you have an ugly or creepy item from your childhood that you can’t part with?
Tell me in the comments!
*Please stop by and read this guest post by Amanda from Gratefully Growing in Grace, leave her some comments, and visit her blog! Thanks!
For more posts about my childhood check out my “Mommy’s Piggy Tales”!
This post is linked to Wordful Wednesday at…
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Wordful Wednesday: The Flight of the Midnight Moth
We could have been friends, you and I
But instead you decided to fly
Without warning too close to my face
Made me jump all over the place
Some of us are moth-friendly folks
Who like hearing moth knock-knock jokes
And would be quite happy to
Become Facebook friends with you
So next time please think before flying
And sending some poor lady crying
The whole thing makes me quite sad
When I consider what we could’ve had
You can check out my Wordless Wednesday post here.
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Fun and Dysfunction 