(It’s not a good sign that I’ve already missed a day, huh?)

1. Wings for dinner are never a bad idea.
2. I sold some of my grandfather’s coins – finally.
3. A Monarch butterfly hanging around our house.
4. Inappropriate laughter. It cures nearly everything, I think.
5. Playing ‘tug-o’-war’ with Daisy and knowing she’s humouring me by pulling more gently than she does with Coffee.
6. Warm cat belly on my feet.
7. Coffee picked up my library books for me so I didn’t have to put on pants.
8. Wildly weird dreams.
9. I have not grown tired of my NOFX playlist despite listening to it every single weekday, and some weekends, for the past month. (But I really should get around to making another playlist or two.)
10. My daily glass of orange juice.

Here are some things that have changed about my husband since we met/dated/married:

• He sleeps in jamma pants, now, instead of jeans.
• He eats chicken wings and he likes them and sometimes he sort of craves them, too.

He.. uhh… well, actually, that’s about it. I guess it’s good that I didn’t marry him with plans to change him, huh?

1. Adding some plain cocoa powder to my morning smoothies makes them taste decadent.
2. A friend from work gave me an enormous bottle of concord grape juice today. I love concord grape juice!
3. It was ridiculously windy today. Not tornadoes. I am grateful for both of those facts.
4. When my husband comes home, he always hugs me.
5. Catching up on a few games of “Draw Something” – I am the worst artist ever and I still really enjoy playing.

There are a number of renovation-type tasks that need to be done in our house and I am afraid of almost all of them. I am not afraid of the renovations themselves – no! – I’m afraid, to be honest, of what we’ll find when we start.

My feeling on renovations has always been that, barring some more complex tasks, almost anything I fuck up royally can either be undone, re-fixed, or professionally redone. The more complex tasks are better left to the professionals in the first place, so you’ll never see me installing new windows or moving a load-bearing wall or whatever. I’m a little quirky; I’m not crazy.

Let me give you an example. The front porch of our house is covered in indoor/outdoor carpeting that has seen its better days (1982?). There’s a tear/rip in one area and it’s frayed in another area and it’s just kind of gross looking. Ideally, we’d remove this carpeting and paint the concrete underneath with that gritty outdoor stuff that adds a bit of traction but can still be (gently) shoveled when winter arrives.

This should not be a terrifying project. Except.. I have no idea what’s underneath that carpeting. What if the concrete is in bad shape – cracking and crumbling – and we need to make bigger repairs? What if that awful carpeting is the only thing keeping the entire porch from collapsing? WHAT THEN?

The simple answer is that I then freak out because.. then we’re out of the realm of my comfort. I’m okay with projects that I choose – less okay with projects that choose me. It means a bigger expense. It means that my simple weekend (or two) project becomes a month-long extravagaza of crap. It means that there’s a possibility of needing to hire someone to come and fix this.

So, I continue to live with the shabby carpeting on the front porch. I pretend to be okay with it. It’s wabi-sabi! It’s shabby-chic!

In our dining room, we’d like to paint the walls. This will require us to remove the textured wallpaper, on two walls, that the cats/kids have destroyed. Again, doesn’t sound overly complex (but it does sound messy and time-consuming) until I start to think about the condition of the walls underneath the papering.

I already know there’s a weird hole in one section (where, I think, there used to be a light switch) and there are some lumpy areas. That’s just what I know is lurking underneath. There is a lot being left up to my imagination.

The idea of peeling wallpaper, cleaning walls, lightly sanding any remaining paste.. well, these things feel okay. I’m great with filling in a few nail holes and priming the surface and even reasonably okay with taping the trim.

But.. I imagine myself peeling down that wallpaper and finding a ridiculously lumpy set of walls that I have to sand and spackle (I am awful at spackling and I admit it). I picture myself starting, getting frustrated, and leaving it. Spackle stuck to everything and walls half-primed.

Seven months later, I’ll be daydreaming about the good old days when I just had shitty looking wallpaper and some chipped paint.

Alternately, I can pretend that my textured wallpaper includes those shredded bits – intentionally.

There are a few other tasks like this. None of them are anything we can afford to have someone else do from start to finish and none of them are projects where I feel comfortable. I don’t understand why you don’t live closer, Dave. I feel like you’d have some really good advice for us on all of it.

1. Getting out the kids’ Spring and Summer clothes, sorting them, getting them tried on, getting them washed and getting them put away in drawers and closets. All the Autumn and Winter stuff has been put away, too.
2. 12 bean soup simmering in the crockpot – smells really good!
3. A really enjoyable shower. Further proof that adults love all sorts of things that kids despise.
4. My husband is the best hugger of all time.
5. Advil.

1. Sylvain was born! And, magically, became my friend! (Even though I didn’t like him ONE BIT when I first learnt of his existence, he has definitely grown on me.)
2. Weekend!
3. My husband has been making steady progress on yard work.
4. Cleaning and sorting and tidying continues.
5. A lady goldfinch and her male partner have been hanging around on the feeder. I approve of this. So do the cats.

If I had even the slightest idea as to how it’s done, I’d make a sparkly crazy banner image and post it here. I do not have any clue how to do that, though (which is probably for the best, all things considered) so I will just say:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SYLVAIN!!!!

1. It’s my coworker’s turn to go to the Friday night outreach thing – so I can relax!
2. Orange juice. Mmmmmm.
3. My husband ordered pizza for dinner AND picked it up!
4. Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.
5. Finishing a really, really good book.
6. It’s Friday the 13th!

1. A day, and evening, full of laughter. Mostly inappropriate.
2. My mother was wrong – she told me, once, that when I grew up I’d have no male friends. As it turns out, I still have plenty of male friends and they’re GOOD friends, too.
3. My husband is my best friend. (Not everyone can say that about their partner/spouse.)
4. Technology still totally blows my mind.
5. The cats’ yowling when I come home at lunch – demanding their own food be promptly delivered to them.