Too Bluuuue

When we bought our new house, I knew one of the things I didn't like about our house was the color of the paint in my bedroom. It was an olive green, and I don't love the color green. As the year has gone on, I have done a lot of thinking about the color, and I had decided to paint the room. I knew I should paint the room gray, but somehow, I thought it would be OK if I painted it a very light blue. Boy, was I wrong.

Over Christmas break, John helped me pick a very light blue from the Pittsburg paint book, and we hired our favorite handyman Bryan to paint. Since there isn't anything Bryan can't do, he started straight away, and painted the ceilings to match the existing paint color the off-white color of the rest of the house (getting rid of the olive-drab color that was actually quite dark). He knocked out the whole of the bedroom in 2 days. It shocked John and I how dark the bedroom was. What shocked us even more was how "blue-blue-blue" the paint was I had chosen.

Bryan called the blue "nursery" blue. He said that I didn't pay him to like the color (which was his way of saying he didn't like the color, which was just short of his way of saying he hated the color.) I don't hate the color, but there's so much of the color. I love the color, as it's Tiffany-box blue, but imagine 500 square feet of it! Imagine an entire room of it! Imagine bathing in it...

When Bryan was cleaning up the bedroom, we had agreed that he would paint the bathroom white, I thought, so when I walked into the bathroom last night at 2am, and flipped the light on, imagine my surprise to find that the new paint (now dry) was... BLUE! ACK! Not a dream. My heart, now beating a bit faster... Check again. Yep: Still blue. Hope Bryan will be back again, with white paint...

End of the Term...

Off with the old, and on with the new... It's the new term at school, and grades are due in the morning. For me, that means I've been grading last-minute redemption assignments from students and fielding phone calls from parents, emails from students, meetings with administrators (and counselors) trying to help kids pass second quarter. That (theoretically) ends tomorrow morning when grades are uploaded. I am giving a handful (one handful) of incompletes, which will have to be changed, but a manageable amount for me and the registrar. One hates to extend that deadline too far, or the natives get restless, and let's face it... there's got to be a deadline somewhere. Most of my students are sophomores, so that deadline is still off in that sunset, a bit, though.

There was a bit of a glitch today, with the new semester, when I couldn't get the grades to print. I had to get John to come get Asa and fetch Max. I worked on getting grades to print for an extra hour, set up the entire new set of grades, and then came home and worked on printing... all to no avail. Finally when I remembered an old issue we had (way back when--maybe four years ago, perhaps even longer... you know you've taught a long time when you start remembering and trying old fixes for issues!) I just started to randomly try old fixes for the printing issue. Low and behold, one of them worked. I could have kissed the printer I was so happy to find a relatively low-tech fix for a troublesome problem.

By then, it was almost 7 pm. I was glad I'd taken the hour after work to sit with the boys and watch the "bishes" on Facebook with Asa and Max. They adore "Fishville" on Facebook. I don't know if it's just because they can watch it, or because it's there, but they enjoy watching the "bishies." Max, especially. He's also interested in the animals on any farm, island, or animal game. He's endlessly fascinated. We toured many an island on "Island Paradise" this evening. He's spot on for "goat," "chicken," "sheep," "peacock," but "turtle" is a bit difficult for him. He also sticks his tongue out and spits for turtle, which is quite a charming thing. I don't quite know why that is the sound for turtle. He's delighted with the sound a goat makes. He wanted me to repeatedly goose the goat. That was his favorite; and pop the bubbles in the "bishes."Asa just wants to make sure I kill the fishes so we can scoop them out. Xandri is endlessly disappointed that she never gets to see a dead fish... To each his own, I suppose. I'm just grateful we don't have to actually *own* all of these animals.

After we'd determined to eat "mom" macaroni-n-cheese (which is *not* macaroni-n-cheese from a box) we ate grilled cheese sandwiches (don't ask me how these things happen) and then the kids had a half an hour to play with the wii, make a huge mess of their bedrooms, half-heartedly clean it up, and then make me cross. After they got in the pajamas, they went to bed, and I can now hear their father saying good night now that he's home from scouts, and my adventure in motherhood is now done! Another Tuesday night survived. Whew!