Dam busting

Exciting times on the Flint River:

Repainting Thomas's Green Room pt. 2

Now all the holes are patched and there is a lot of plastic hung up to cover the doors and ceiling fan blades.

Simon gets to do the fun part, painting the walls with the new color.  I bought the most expensive paint at Home Depot (living still in 1990, I assumed the paint would cost about $9 a gallon--try $45 a gallon!) and was cheered by the idea that this particular brand/type is guaranteed to come with primer in it, as well as mildewcide AND maximum "hide" which I now know means that it will cover up dark paint in one coat!  Then I picked out my color and the woman working there said, "This is guaranteed to cover in one coat--except this color."  So, thinking of that puke brown/green, I got two gallons.  Then, while I was waiting for the paint to mix the guy behind me bought the same paint--in light dove gray--and then she said, "Oh, it's not guaranteed to be one coat for that color, either."  Are ANY of the colors truly one coat?

Sylvester puts on his work pants and sets to helping.

So far so good...

All the stuff on Thomas's shelves got moved to his blue room.  He can't come home for a few days, at least as there is not one spare inch for him in either of his rooms.

See?  No room for Thomases.

Repainting Thomas's Green Room pt. 1

There was a set of built-in shelved all around the door to Thomas's balcony door and it was time they went. It was amazingly easy to pull them down. As usual I wondered why I hadn't pulled them down 19 years ago. Behind one that was shaped like a shoe rack I found a heap of very mysterious papers and maps. One bit of paper was a Christmas program for a church dated from 1953. There was also a Phillips 66 map to "Indian Territory." Strange.  You can also see the complete history of this room on this baseboard:  Puke green/brown one the lowest layer, followed up by powder baby pink, then the lurid lime green Thomas picked out.

There is the show rack on the floor and behind it the ugliest green/brown paint I have ever seen on a wall in my life.

Here is the other corner with the purple bookshelves Thomas and I built about 10 years ago pulled down, leaving behind a lot of large holes in the wall.

Here is the bookcase pulled out also revealing the same putrid brown/green paint--and an absence of baseboards.  So finding wood and trim and fitting them along the floor in that corner is now another thing to do to finish this room.

Rainy day today--and no one wants the old shelf.

Back to Chicago!

You can't beat a 4 minute drive to the train station. But it would be nice if we didn't always seem to be going there in the dark when it's 20 degrees out. Thomas hasn't quite woken up yet and it shows.

(Wow, does that kitchen floor look disgusting.  Mustn't look--we aren't scheduled to make over the downstairs until June and July.)

He texted me later that day, claiming that "he supposed" he had arrived safely.

Clearing out Thomas's room, contd.

We divided the task into 6 sections and took on one section each day Thomas was here. Plainly Thomas is severely anemic because 20 minutes of intense decision making ("Throw it away or keep it? Keep it out or store it?") left him exhausted and weak--though not too weak to eat a full meal every 2-3 hours.  Here is stuff that fall into the "keep but store in the basement" category.

This was the last day, just the wii and some random games left to sort through. 

A much needed gaming break.

Here is the desk area fully cleared out.  The wall shelf units are slated to be taken down.

Here is the big bookcase fully cleaned and organized. 

Half of Thomas "library", which he intends to fatten up.  It's a modest start, but I am sure it will grow.

Removing about 14 bags worth of stuff (some thrown away, most to Goodwill) revealed how old and stained the walls are, never mind that the green is mind bogglingly bright.  So, as with the blue room which I finished with last month, this will have to get spackled and painted.  It's going to look SO NICE--it's a crime that Thomas is only in it 12 or so weeks a year.

Thomas is visiting for half term

He and Jami have been de-Augean-Stabling his room and have made some real progress (as can be seen in the shelves below) so he needs a bit of a gaming break:

Jami's Birthday

...was last Sunday.  I suggested she go out for sushi at the local sushi place (Sagano's) with her mother.  Alas, Sagano's was closed, so she had to settle (and I mean that like silt settles to the very bottom) for "The Olive Garden".  On the plus side, she was regaled with a blow by blow account of Joanne's previous night's viewing of a little film called "Human Centipede"...
Here are some of the viewing she gets to do on our new TV, thanks to various gift-givers:

And here is the "Chocolate Lava Cake" I made her in the Instant Pot (it's dangerously quick and easy):

March-y scenes

Thomas's Room Make Over continues...

The window trim got a fresh coat of paint and so the room is now officially mildew free.

Apparently all newly made over rooms come with a complimentary wooly vest--lucky Thomas!

In like a lion

After a week of unseasonably balmy weather (probably what drove most of Jami's flurry of spring-cleaning) we get this today:

 Mr. Chicken has been exiled from the compound for extreme assholery, so he sought shelter from the snow in the porch: