Wallpaper Woes

When I bought this 1820’s to 1840’s house in 1999 it had a lot of wall paper on the walls- and ceilings. Yes ceilings but that is for another post. By a lot I mean every inch of wall and ceiling except for the upstairs hall and one bedroom. There are four bedrooms total. Also by a lot I mean layers. Layers upon layers. In the case of the ceilings -layers were applied going in different directions. Yes I know insanity. I started with the most damaged- meaning falling on my head – which also happened to be the smallest room-the bathroom. The top layer had been applied in the 1970’s, I would guess, and was of a vinyl persuasion that simply peeled off in big sheets- no big deal. The bathroom was then gutted and completely re-modeled. This is yet another post. This did not prepare me for what was to come. The rest of the wall paper had the last layer applied in the 1940’s/1950’s with many previous layers applied prior. I started on an upstairs bedroom and I haven’t looked back. Prior to this I have done the bathroom, 2 upstairs bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room, and stairway hall up to the landing. The dining room and living room presented an additional challenge. The folks who lived here prior to me(from 1941- to the owners passing in 1997 or 1998) got tired of looking at the dated wall paper but didn’t have the ambition or insanity required to remove all 7 – yes I said 7 layers of wall paper in the dining and living room so they thought “we will paint over it with a thick textured paint and no one will notice the 7 layers of wall paper underneath”. I would guess (based on the color and condition of said paint) that this decision was made some where around 1974. That is also about the time the 3 tone green shag carpet was installed over the hard wood floors and by installed I mean glued. Yes glued. The hubby and I tackled the dining room- including dueling heat guns on the floor to remove the adhered carpet. The floor is sanded and finished and it really looks amazing. This made the attached living room look even worse. We started on the living room as a rainy day option to building the addition on the house. Then I got pregnant. Well we got half way around. Then we had the first year of our preemie son’s life- what we now affectionately refer to as “the year of the broken baby”. Needless to say all house remodeling of any kind came to a screeching halt. Now that the broken baby seems to be fixed it is time to kick it back in gear. We started this past summer by installing a pool and putting new siding on the house and I was, quite frankly, sick of looking at the faded, puke green, cracked, bumpy walls. The process went something like this-

1- Clear a chunk of wall- drop heavy objects on your foot- step on the cat-swear under your breath.

2-Take an angled scraper and scrap all the paint- and usually the top 2 layers of wall paper off- make sure to spread the cracked paint all over the house swear under your breath.

3- Score with a paper tiger and soak with DIF- make sure that lots of the DIF runs down your arms as you work over your head and have cat walk through it several times- swear under your breath

4- Scrape off 2 to 3 layers of wall paper.

5-Repeat steps 3 & 4 until wall paper is gone- have 2 year old and cats track pieces of wall paper all over the rest of the house- swear under your breath.

6-Wash 100 year old glue off of wall- repeat to self “wax on wax off” from the movie Karate Kid and remind your self all the money you are saving on a gym membership.

7-Paint with super sealer/primer KILZ.

8-Spackle-sand

9-Repeat step 8 with lots of cat and toddler tracks to spread dust around the house evenly.

10- Paint with 2 to 3 coats of fresh new paint- have toddler turn paint upside down- scoop paint back in to paint can- give toddler a bath- soak laundry.

11- Re-arrange room, move to next chunk of wall, rinse, lather, repeat.

In between each step there was much additional swearing and cleaning to be done and now the walls are finished. I have one chunk of wall paper left to battle and that is on the stair way. The one bedroom with it remaining is being gutted for a kitchen expansion so there is no need to battle the wall paper. The ceilings in the living room and dining room still have to be dealt with but there will probably be an alternate solution. Again that is for another post. For now come tour my living room. If you don’t like the colors at least it is just paint. Trust me it is easy to just paint and in the name of all that is holy- DON’T PUT UP WALL PAPER!

We were half way across the arch when we stopped. I picked it up with this section.

Steps 1-10 complete on to the next section.

Shouldn’t everyone have a shop vac residing in their living room?

Again the next section.

I picture of what remains and what had to be moved-ugh. Why are we teachers with so many books?

The wall paper debris. I filled a garbage bag with each section.

The last section.

Mommy’s helper.

Mommy got LOTS of “help”

The foot prints of the culprit.

Done! Well at least with the walls. The floors and ceiling are another project.

Putting Down Roots

This is my husband’s redbud tree.  We both enjoy the effusion of flowers in the spring and the lush, green, heart shaped leaves in the summer.  It lives in the front of our yard near the road and drive way.  It is a focal point for lots of folks in the neighborhood because it is such a beautiful tree and -because it didn’t always used to reside in it’s current home.

 

“Okay just shove it from that end….I think we have it…” I hear my friend and neighbor from across the street as she shouts through a mass of twigs and leaves. “There!” With a grown and the crunching sounds of breaking plastic as the window knob pops off the door of my car, a medium sized red bud tree – meaning 6ft tall with accompanying dirt ball has just landed with a plop in the street in front of my house. Now what? Total weight is probably 300 lbs. This tree arrived here after a two hour commute in my hatch back compact car. What on earth am I doing you ask? I have been known to ask myself those very same questions. My significant other and I have decided to set up housekeeping. I know this is crazy talk. We     have both been married before and both of our previous spouses found each of us some how lacking. We both got dumped -not to put to fine a point on it. We are both college educated and we have both taken stats. classes. We know the failure rates on second marriages. So what I am I doing standing in the middle of the street with 300 + pounds of dirt and tree in front of my house? I am moving my significant other’s tree from his house in Traverse City to my/ now our house in Cedar Springs. When he told me he wanted to put down roots he wasn’t kidding. We have already moved 4 Canadian shrub rose bushes and the accompanying 8 ft tall garden arch they grow on, a 2 ft tall mock orange bush, and assorted hostas, daylilies, lily and tulip bulbs. Now for the piece de resistance in this botanical migration– his beloved red bud tree.   I have to say a red bud is a spectacular deciduous specimen. They are also expensive to purchase and I do not have one in the current landscaping. The significant other and I are both avid gardeners. I also have to say this undertaking was my idea. When getting ready to put his house up for sale he was lamenting the loss of this tree he had worked so hard to foster. I said “ Lets move it.” He looked at me like I was crazy for a moment –this is a standard response from lots of folks by the way  not just my husband-then he smiled and said “let’s try it!” He and I dug the tree out with an ample amount of dirt in hopes of not disturbing the roots any more than necessary. The two of us heaved the tree on to a tarp. We wrapped the tarp around the root ball. We backed my hatch back car up to the tree. We dropped the back seat, he then, with help from me, lifted the root ball up and dropped it in to the hatch. We shoved and pushed until the root ball dropped on to the floor in front of the back seat of the car with a sink of the tires. We bungeed the hatch shut and then my dearly beloved had to go to work. He was still working 2^nd shift at the hospital in TC. So off I headed with very explicit instructions to get help from LOTS of the neighbors in the attempt at tree disembarkation. I arrived home with plenty of day light to complete this task. I chose a spot in the front yard near the curb, dug a substantial hole, prepped it with compost, and then headed to the neighbors across the street for some assistance. The Mrs. of said couple said the Mr. was not home but she would help me. She thought the two of us could handle it-famous last words. Now the branches of a tree grow in a specific direction- up towards the sun. When we put the tree in my car the branches collapsed against the trunk relatively nicely. To take the tree out the same way it came in my friend and I would have the branches working against us. We decided to come out the back side door instead and we would have gravity helping us right? Problem the root ball is rather firmly wedged in the back seat well. This direction of removal also means the tree has to make a bit of a turn to come out the door. My friend and I pushed and pulled- pulled and pushed. We heaved and shoved providing every car going down our street a nice view of our tushes as we bent and strained. We even got a few honks. I am not sure if they were in appreciation or encouragement but at any rate after a bit of a struggle the root ball landed with a plop on to the street taking my passenger window roller off in the process. We did some more maneuvering and we soon had the tree in it’s entirety free of the vehicle and standing upright – in the street. Now what? We both got on one side and started tugging. Inch by inch and foot by foot, up over the lip of the curb we pulled the tree towards the prepared hole. Again we received a warm round of encouragement from passing motorists. I have always known we lived in a friendly neighborhood. We got to the side of the tree’s new home, unwrapped the tarp and rather unceremoniously rolled the tree in to the hole. I thanked my friend, filled in the hole, and turned on the hose to water it in. While watering I started to wonder if there was a separate demographic on divorce rates for people who put down roots- literally. It is one thing for some one to commit to moving their underwear, toothbrush, and furniture. It is another to commit to a tree. This tree should out live us both. How is that for a symbol of permanence? I am happy to report that now years later both the tree and my marriage are still here, both defying the statistical odds for sustainability. It is a story told among the neighbors when some one new moves in- about that crazy couple who when they got married moved a tree. My husband was asked the other day by a recently widowed and then re-married neighbor “I hear you moved that tree all the way from Traverse City, and it  survived? Can I come look at it?” His answer- “Absolutely-  we have rich dirt around here-it is good for putting down roots. Welcome to the neighborhood”

 

Door to door religious sales people.

I try to be open to lots of points of view when it comes to lots of things including religion but I get really frustrated with the door to door sales pitch.  I don’t want ANYTHING sold to me unbidden on my front porch.  Not meat off a truck, vacuum cleaners, cleaning products, magazines, telephone or cable plans, and especially not religion. My one exception is kids earning money for a school or community activity. If you want to sell me something door to door you had better be a minor and be raising money for something ending with the words- team, club,or activity. I got home from school yesterday very hungry and simultaneously anxious to get outside and play in my garden on a lovely spring day. I had previously - before leaving for school – made home made macaroni and cheese in the crock pot ( if any one wants the recipe let me know it is REALLY good) and I was anxious to eat, feed the two year old and move all of us to the out of doors.  We had just sat down and started eating when a persistent knock came at the door.  Now this can never be good.  People who know us knock and then enter stating who they are.  We don’t lock our doors- that is another story but at any rate only folks who don’t know us knock and wait. I got up and headed to the door with the toddlers macaroni bowl in my hand and the toddler trailing behind me. At the door I found a gentleman in a shirt and tie and a clip board with various religious tracks.  At this point I am wondering why none of my neighbors warned me- my neighbor across the street usually gets hit first and calls telling me not to answer the door.  I have actually laid on the floor whispering into the phone of a neighbor so as not to be seen through my windows. As I looked out, the neighbor’s house in question had people at their door.  Great I have been caught - okay lets make this as short as possible- the food is cooling in the bowl and I can see the tantalizing wave of the tulips over this man’s shoulder. 

“what can I do for you?” I asked

“Do you have a Bible?” He asked

“Yes- are you needing one?” Now I thought it was odd to be walking down the street and have a need for a Bible so sudden that you have to knock on a strangers door but okay I can oblige. That however was not the response he was looking for.

“The world is a horrible place and the Bible is the only comfort. Get on your knees and  pray with me now”

Now first off I don’t believe the world as a whole is a horrible place and at the moment I have some wonderful mac and cheese- home made with extra cheese, ham, and peas mind you waiting to be eaten. Secondly the sun is shining and the flowers are blooming outside where I would very much like to be. Thirdly I am wearing a skirt and holding a bowl of afore mentioned mac and cheese in one hand and trying to keep the toddler from escaping with the other.  Not exactly the best accoutrements for spontaneous kneeling.

“Not right now thank you” I responded and began to close the door.  At this point he says “We have to do this it is for your soul” and proceeds to stick his foot in the rapidly closing door. The two year old thinks this a wildly entertaining game and he would also very much like to be outside - thus he makes a lunge for the door. I lunge after him – putting the macaroni and cheese in the bowl in peril. I should also add that my husband is not yet home from his teaching job, but at this point I am mad and I mean MAD. 

I say “Look I have a degree in persuasive argumentation and let me assure you this is not it. Remove your foot from my door and yourself from my property or you will wish you had. Please start praying that this mac and cheese doesn’t mess up your lovely white shirt. Have a good day and and I will pray that God will teach you some manners and to not interrupt people’s dinner or to enter their houses uninvited.”

He backed away, some what startled and apologized if his vehemence had frightened me- “It is just such perilous times we live in.” he exclaimed as he took his exit. Perilous for him maybe if he kept me away from pasta and cheese sauce any longer.  Hmmmh!

My hubby the medical lab/biology teacher came home shortly there after and I recounted the tale- “I missed it? Darn” but he agreed it was some really AMAZING macaroni and cheese.  Again let me know if you want the recipe- just call first if you are coming to my door and don’t try to sell me something- laundry detergent, 911 house numbers, God, or anything else.

Snow Daze

I can't believe the snow and cold we have had. The snow I actually like, but this crazy fifteen degrees below zero- and we are not talking about Celsius- is for the birds. Actually the birds don't even like it- well maybe the penguins. This would be the year, of course, that we aren't going to FL. Once again we have been unsure about Cae's ears, and our mid-winter break is shorter this year. Clint and I have virtually the same breaks, even though we teach in different districts, due to a county wide calender. We had a snow day today. Clint even got in on this one. KCTC doesn't close unless eighty percent of the schools they serve are closed. Usually it takes GR Public to close, for KCTC to close and GR Public hardly ever closes. They did today. I haven't had a complete week with my students since the semester started. I don't even know all of their names yet. The cabin fever has sent me back to writing and in scrolling through my stories I found one on snow. This is from a few years ago- probably close to ten- and they are no longer survaying- I went back to the web site, but they have pictures and even a book. Check it out.
www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/primer/primer.htm

Snow
Snow is truly amazing. There are billions of individual snow crystals that fall in any given snow storm. According to the Snow Crystal Primer put out by the folks at Cal Tech. 10 to the 24th power snow flakes fall every year here on our fabulous planet. According to their web sight on snow crystals it is really true that no two are exactly alike. I was contemplating snow on my way into school today as I stopped to pick up the mail out of my mail box. I live in the great state of Michigan on the west side where we are the recipients of this nifty phenomena called lake effect snow. What happens as it was explained to me by a meteorologist friend, it is really just simple laws of physics. First water has a tendency to remain constant in temperature. Lake Michigan consisting of 136 to the tenth power gallons of water is a pretty extensive quantity to remain constant. During the warm spring and summer months the Great Lake warms up to as much as 70 degrees F. Then fall comes and the jet stream pumps arctic air down from Canada across the lake. The temperature difference of cold air and warm water causes a great evaporation suction of water off the lake. The damp air mass then moves on shore. The land mass is cooler in temperature causing the air to drop it’s moisture in the form of lake effect snow and lots of it. Here in the fair city of Cedar Springs Michigan we have received no less than seventy five inches and it is not yet the first of January. That is over six feet of total snow this season. All that snow is made up of billions and billions of individual crystals all completely different.
As I went to get the mail I discovered that my mail box is almost covered and I started to ponder about snow. Thus the trip to the Cal Tech web sight. I have lived in the snow belt in Michigan my entire life and some folks in the sunny state of California taught me some things I didn’t know about snow. I learned that there are scientific terms for snow. A snow crystal is what most of us think of as an individual six sided snow flake. These are crystals that grow from condensing water vapor and start around a nucleus of some sort, frequently dust. Think about that the next time you are dusting or not dusting your house. Maybe I won’t dust just to encourage the snow crystals. Snow flakes are clusters of these crystals bonded together and can grow up to 10cm across. Then there is rime which is frozen fog or what I was taught to call hoarfrost. The diamonds spoke of in Robert Frost poems. Then Graupel a nasty word for a nasty substance scientifically described as a loose gathering of water droplets frozen together. What we here call sleet. And finally hail. These are chunks of solid ice. It can come down as small as barley or as big as grapefruit. This started me to thinking of all the different kinds of snow we have and all of the very unscientific names we have created to describe it.
There is the wet heavy snow that as kids we called snow man snow because of it’s good packing quality, as a grown up it is also called heart attack snow because of the folks who do such when shoveling the heavy stuff. Then squeaky snow as the temperature drops and the snow squeaks when you walk on it. There is puffy snow that falls from the sky like feathers. There is the sleet that falls and then freezes coating everything with a crystal coating of ice. There is slush which is what happens in the beginnings of spring when the piles of snow start to melt into a primordial soup returning the crystals to the water cycle. There is crusty snow when the top layer has formed a crust and you break through it with your feet and it makes a crunching, popping sound. When Jack London described the cold and snow in “To Build a Fire” I knew of what he spoke. I have often thought that folks who don’t have to live with the white stuff falling from the heavens for at least part of their lives are some how poorer for the lack of experience. I remember as a kid I had a cousin who lived in Hawaii, and she was visiting in the summer for a wedding. I tried vainly to explain snow to her. I failed miserably. The folks at Cal Tech make it in a temperature controlled lab. Maybe they have a glint of understanding. I was once told the Inuit Indians have over fifty different descriptors for snow, how wonderfully amazing I think. Next time you are in a snow storm give this a thought also go out and examine the crystals. The folks at Cal Tech say all you need is a magnifying glass and a smooth surface. They recommend a car wind shield and then if you really want to feel a part of the investigation write them back. On their web page they have a questionnaire for you to fill out. They are trying to catalog the best snow watching in the world. I can tell you where it is- by my mail box.

Christmas Day Afternoon

Trish and Jake gave Caelun this toy and Abbi a gift card- such a nice aunt and uncle

Abbi is such a good big sister-better than Cae deserves!

At least here he isn't yanking her hair

Trish and Jake

We have a brunch on Christmas Day for Clint's Dad and Step-Mom and any grandpas, grandmas, siblings, Aunts, Uncles, in-laws, and out-laws or other way word lost souls who are crazy enough to wander in off the street. This year it was Mary, Floyd, Grandpa Floyd, Trish, and Jake. I was to busy running around getting food and talking to everyone to take many pictures. In addition my new camera was being passed around and oooed and ahhhed over, but I did get one picture of Trish and Jake before they headed to the next relative on their rounds. Trish noticed a little sign we have in a frame on a shelf in our living room- "Cats are just children who eat off the floor" and she enjoyed that. Their children are of the furry with tail persuasion. I can relate. The mini-van driving, diaper changing, driving to horse camp life is not for everyone. I have a group of essays my students call "Tow's Tales" that I started as kind of a running commentary /journal of my observations of life- Robert Fulghum style. We started using the classroom appropriate stories for improve and the kids seem to love them. I don't bring them out until I have a request and it never fails that I have a request. This is one of those essays - keep in mind it was written before I had children-and it is for my friend and sister in-law Trish.






My Cats
Pets are amazing. Now there are all the regular and usual things like they are good companions and highly entertaining. I have another reason why to have pets. As I stated before my husband and I are DINKS (double income no kids). This is a choice. A choice my grandmothers in the 1920s and even my mother in the late sixties didn’t really have and I am aware of the power of having that choice. My career and education are very important to me. Having an associates degree with an emphasis in child development and a secondary ed. teaching certificate and having taught everything from preschool to college students I am fulfilling my parenting needs. When people ask if I have children I say yes lots if it is debate season I have seventy-eight which is the number on my team or if it is forensics season I say forty-three which is the respective members of that team and this is really enough. Besides this my children come potty trained and sleeping through the night at least most of the time. I occasionally get a two a.m. phone call from a hysterical student with a life catastrophe but certainly not every three hours. In fact half of my children come driving and some one else has to buy the car and pay the insurance. Someone else has to pay the medical bills, provide the braces and pay the ticket to college I just have to love and educated them which is the fun part. My children are borrowed and go home when the bell rings or some time there after. I enjoy borrowing children so much that I have an entire play room in my house full of toys for the children on loan: nieces, nephews, god-children neighbors and any strays that wander in to play. Any time I have gotten the maternal urge I simply borrow someone’s children until the urge goes away. The parents of said children; our siblings and friends, are just as happy for a weekend away. They don’t ask a lot of questions. I then can be the favorite aunt. I take the kids, feed them chocolate and junk food, let them stay up until all hours, let them watch scary movies they aren’t supposed to watch and then when I and they are tired I send them home. This usually quiets the urge to pro-create quite sufficiently. But most of the children in my life have been progressing along in age and becoming even more fun than work so I needed something new. I examined our savings account with a balance of $16.54. Looked at our one bedroom apartment of 600 square feet and decided that real human children were just not in our price range. This is where kitty number one enters the picture. His name is Pokey. You see pets make wonderful surrogates for children. This was fine and wonderful and then we bought a house with lots of space. We considered a second kitty but we were concerned about the psychological ramifications on kitty number one. We kitty sat for a friend while she went to Colorado for a week and Pokey had a ball. It was kitty summer camp at our house. He seemed very lonely and depressed when the visiting kitties returned to their respective home. At this same time two of our god daughters found a stray in need of a home and they couldn’t keep it due to allergies. The allergies were on the part of the kids not the cat by the way. Thus entered kitty number two. Her name is Nutmeg; the god daughters named her. We had some litter box issues at first but after a short time they seemed to resolved themselves with no kitty therapy required. So now they are the best of friends and are very self reliant as long as the food bowl is kept full. Now for the part why they are better than children. Neither of my kitties will ever want to go to kitty college. Neither needs braces nor wants the latest in clothes or make up. There will be no grand kitty wedding and no son or daughter in law that I may or may not like. I have made sure they can’t get knocked up. They won’t let you do that with real human children; though many parents might like to. There is no new kitty music I may not like. Christmas is easy. A can of tuna fish and the world is wonderful. There are no kitty shoes to out grow/wear out. I don’t need to worry about marring their psyche and then having them write a tell-all book. They have yet to equip a keyboard to work for kitty paws. No expensive kitty summer camp is required though I hear it is an option. I never have to worry about them getting messed up on drugs. I have not heard of a single cat in rehab from catnip, so we are safe there. There are no kitty driver’s licenses and thus no expensive teen kitty car insurance and no car accidents. My kitties don’t go out side unaccompanied and thus their only encounter with a car involves being chauffeured to the vet or grandma and grandpa’s. When I am busy working long or weird hours and my children at school need me I don’t worry about kitty day care or if they will be damaged from lack of quality time. All have to do is open a can when I get home and all is right with the world. All in all they make good surrogates. This leads me to my next point which is I want to be one of my cats. It doesn’t matter which one just one of them. Now I don’t want to be any cat. I know that many animals are brutalized and treated cruelly but not my cats. I want to be MY cat. My kitties are the best of friends and they have an entire four bedroom house to play in. They have an enormous basket full of toys they can get out and spread all over the house and never have to pick up. Their food bowl is always full and they at no time have to cook it. There are also no dishes to wash once again this is all taken care of. They are regularly brushed and washed and every need is looked after. I especially think I would like to be my cat when I am leaving for school some bleak morning. There is a foot of snow on my car that has to be cleaned off. I have been up most of the night grading papers and I am no where near done. The basement is full of dirty laundry, the sink is full of dirty dishes and the refrigerator is empty of edible food. There sit both of my kitties snuggled in the down comforter on the bed clean warm dry with their bellies full and not a care in the world. Such the life. Of course my kitties have never read Shakespeare, experienced the joy of a job well done, had an ah ha moment of realization and clarity, or explored the concepts of history or future. All in all I guess there is a reason why I am me and they are them. Sometimes things in the universe are just the way they are meant to be.
Now if you have ever owned a cat you can appreciate this next section if not you won’t understand why cat lovers tolerate this. I am home for about two weeks on winter break. Amid the hustle and bustle of the end of school I picked up a cold, not surprising when you are surrounded by children. They are walking petri dishes but at any rate I digress. Having a sore throat I took a couple of aspirin put on a pair of sweats drank some juice and crawled under my down comforter to sleep it off. I awoke a couple of hours later with not one but two kitties laying on my head and one was holding my head down with both front paws and fervently washing my face. Now I was not aware when I crawled into bed that my face was especially dirty but apparently Miss Nutmeg could see something I couldn’t. Now this is not the first experience I have encountered with this cat on the head phenomena and most of my cat owning friends say they have similar experiences. My question is why? What is it about a human head that is so very appealing to a cat? Now I will tell you it is not always an unpleasant experience for the human. There are plenty of times when I have had a raging sinus headache and having a soft warm vibrating kitty (they do that when they purr) plunk down on your throbbing head is a very pleasant feeling indeed. Still, I wonder what it does for the cat. So far my kitties have never clued me in. If you ever figure it out let me know.





Now this being said- I am not looking to return my children but I can appreciate Trish's point of view.