Wuthering Hyders

The Joy of Painting

I always agreed with Bob Ross when he talked about the joy of painting. His "happy little clouds" and trees that always had "friends" next to them so they weren't lonely. Which is actually kind of odd when you think about it. They weren't even real trees so how could they be lonely? Does painting something make it "real"? I'm way too exhausted to get into a debate with myself about something like that right now.

I used to really enjoy painting. Walls, pictures, cars, whatever. Now that I have children, I find the joys of painting somewhat altered. Finger-painting has never been so much fun, but trying to paint a house? Not so much. It only took me a couple of hours before I realized I should have put them in "play" clothes, but they had spent three days at my mom's when she brought them to the new house so I didn't have a real selection to choose from as I haven't even packed the kids' clothes yet, much less brought them over here. The last two days they've been in the same clothes and are getting covered in paint. As long as they're not getting it all over the house, I'm alright with that. I'm covered in paint, too. I'm not sure it'll ever come out of my hair. I'll have to spend hours in the shower, I expect. Although, that's not such a bad thing, come to think of it...

We seem to have acquired a sort of zoo along with the house. So far we've seen several robins, some common grackles, sparrows, a male mallard duck, a snake ( the harmless kind, that goodness ), and a pair of cottontails. The kids love the rabbits. They can watch them out of the basement windows and see them pretty close up. They've been here the past two nights, so I'm guessing they're going to be regulars. So much for having a vegetable garden. The weird thing is that all of the animals seem to be more interested in watching US than we are of watching them. The duck especially. He sat there and eye-balled me from across the stream as though he were sizing me up ( or checking me out ). Kind of creepy. I haven't seen any blackbirds though. I'm going to miss them.

Aside from the menagerie of animals, we also discovered something hideous in the upstairs bath. It was almost grounds for selling the house immediately. I sent Heath up to remove the trim and border from around the top of the walls. He came back down with the awful thing in his hands. That dreadful, demonic purple dinosaur whose name I refuse to utter was on the hidden part of the border! Had I known that before I might never have thought about buying this house. To think that that evil has been here is absolutely revolting. I must cleanse myself of this, as well.

That's about all I can mention for now. Between the paint fumes and the kids, my brain is toast. I need to get home and get some rest because, in the words of Scarlett O'Hara, "Tomorrow, is another day".