This is what I was saying last weekend. ALL WEEKEND LONG.
My husband and I have been working on the house for quite a while. I've been in the process of decluttering ten years of our life while he has been redoing our bar, making trims (to save money) and painting like a fool. Everything was fine until this past weekend when it became crunch time. His brother and family flew in from Paris Sunday at 5:30pm. We finished the house thirty minutes before they stepped off the plane.
Those design shows are full and I do mean FULL of shit. They make it all look so easy. One shot is how they want to design the room, next one they are moving furniture out of a room, next someone is holding a paintbrush and you see one little dash of paint on the wall and then voila! They are laying out candles, the furniture has magically appeared in the room, no one is in a sweat, and everything is PERFECT.
What you don't know is that there are twenty people hiding in the back of the house who break out working like Tasmanian devils when the camera is off.
My husband and I were only two Tasmanian devils and even we weren't fast enough. He actually never slept Saturday night and painted from 7:00am Saturday morning until 5:00pm Sunday evening. There were times that I almost started crying because it was just so overwhelming and I felt we would never get done. It was HELL. In Arabic, they say "Mosaba" meaning it's a catastrophe. All weekend long as I passed my mother-in-law in the house we would look at each and say, "Mon dieu...Mosaba!!".
I love that woman, by the way. She is such a dear angel. She flew from Morocco a few months ago and will be here until November. She helped out as well this past weekend and made the most beautiful curtains, pillows and comforter for the guest room. I need to take pics and post them one day.
Wow...I said "guest room". Most of the time I say it's my daughter's room because it is her room. It is the room she left and moved away from. It is really gorgeous now. I think it's easier to look at because it doesn't look like her room anymore. After she left it was hell even looking in the direction of her bedroom. All of her posters were off the walls when she left with holes all over the drywall. None of her things were there anymore and it looked abandoned. The walls were a mess with holes. I didn't realize it because she was always putting up posters here and there and changing them out and I never knew how many holes she actually put in the walls. My husband was spackling like crazy to fill them all in.
We still say it's her room. It will always be her room. It is just different now. Just like our relationship since she left.
I really need to write about what happened up until and when she left. It is just so difficult to do that.
Karen, I am sorry to hear about your daughter. I read your comments to my other posts and I wanted to say something and felt at a loss for words. I completely understand what you are going through. It's just so damn hard. I will write you soon, though. It has just been difficult to do it.
My brother-in-law and his wife and daughter will be here for another two weeks. Things will then start calming down. The only things left to do to the house after they leave is:
- Paint the facade of my husband's studio which happens to be located at the front of our house. The sun has faded it out so badly it looks like Sanford and Son live here.
- Turn the guest room (the room beside my daughter's room) into a "cave" for me. My husband is going to build bookshelves, we are going to paint and I am going to get my scrapbooking and jewelry-making things out of boxes they have been stored in for FOREVER and have a place all my own. I simply cannot wait for that!!
- Redo the paint in our bathroom. We never had a chance to get to it.
- Paint the shed in the backyard.
It's been nice to declutter. You feel lighter in your mind after going through everything. I still have more to do, but a huge amount has been done already.
I went to court for the bankruptcy hearing. Thank goodness that is over. The judge said that I would have to be "re-evaluated" in October 2011 because by then my husband hopefully will have a job and our financial situation will be different which means we will have to pay more money to the court every month. I hate the thought of having to go back to court then. Bankruptcy court is such a miserable place. People there all look depressed. Some people are having to pay over $3,200 a month for five years for their bankruptcy! I don't know how they afford that. I am having to pay $200 a month for five years. Many people there had already filed for bankruptcy multiple times in their life. I never knew that you could do that. I definitely don't ever want to do that again.
I still haven't gotten word about when I am supposed to go to the federal court for the security clearance I need for my job. I have all of my paperwork together though and am just waiting to know the date.
My house is changing just like my life has been changing. It's a new phase of life now. I am trying to get used to it. I don't know if I can. I haven't given up yet, though. I hope to get through it and be smiling on the other side.
