The Great Renovation, Parts 2 & 3

Friday, May 9, 2008

Phases 2 & 3 of the renovation of the nursery are now *finished,* leaving just the fun parts left! The paint & wallpaper removal ended up taking us a lot longer than we thought it would (about two and a half weeks), and the drama didn't end there.

This is my father, most likely grateful that we're nearing the end of our two and a half week "removing 5 layers of paint and wallpaper" debacle


A different angle showing our progress

After all the paint was off, we sanded, spackled, and moved on to primer (none of which I took any pictures of, unfortunately). The bare walls actually soaked up two layers of primer, leaving some parts of it whiter than others no matter what we did. We wanted to paint the blue over a pure, white surface to ensure it's true brightness would come out, but the house just was not allowing it. Finally we gave up and just decided to paint the blue over what we had- and it worked!


Brightest Blue EVER!

After another coat of "Galactic Sky," we'll be putting up big, realistic wall decals of all the planets and a huge handpainted mural of a rocketship (painted by my dad) to break up all the blue. Also forthcoming (depending on how lucky I am bargain hunting) will be a large gray area rug for the floor! There's no way we can afford to rip up the carpet and put a new one in, so I'm improvising. Wish me luck!

The Great Renovation, Part 1

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

As I've mentioned before, my grandmother recently moved from her home of 50 years into an Assisted Living facility with special dementia care. Upon leaving, she left David and I in the house to stay for at least two years so that we can raise the baby somewhere safe while saving up money to eventually get our own place somewhere other than Springfield. I love Springfield in that "face only a mother could love" way that some people love their ugly, mangy cats, but that doesn't mean I want to raise my son here, heh.

This has left us with roughly two months to do crazy renovations here before the baby comes, the first of which (obviously) is gutting out the den to turn it into the nursery. Five generations of my family have now lived in this house, and the den used to be my mother's childhood bedroom. Before that, it was my great grandfathers bedroom when he came to live with my grandparents many, many, many years ago. David and I (with help from my wonderful family) will be stripping off two layers of paint, a layer of blue and pink psychedelic floral wallpaper (<3 Mom!), another layer of paint AND (as it turns out) another layer of ancient, super-thin wallpaper that belonged to my great grandfather. No one knew it was still under there, so it caused a rush of surprise nostalgia for my mother. She says her earliest memory is of staring at that wallpaper (it's really intricate, full of vintage asian village scenes- rice paddies, chinese red pine trees, grass huts and elaborate old sampans), so it was a thrill to uncover it after so many years. My mother even wrote the first poem she'd written in almost 30 years about it! Amazing, amazing.

A little peak at the old wallpaper

Before we knew the gender of the baby (before the baby even had a "gender," really) Davey and I had decided on an outer space theme for the nursery, which we imagined would be colorful, bright and bold. We started to get discouraged, though, after a little while of only finding cutesy pastel sleepy moon and stars patterns everywhere we went, and began to think we might have to take a different approach. My mother though, being the absolute saint that she is, somehow found this, the most amazing crib set ever. It's all bold, primary colors and has ALL of the planets, not just the moon, with their names under them and little space aliens peppered all across it. The base paint we picked out is Disney paint, a really bright blue called "Galactic Sky." We plan to paint planets and stars all over it in a billion different colors as well as sticking this mobile in the window. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm so jazzed and enthusiastic about doing it that I doubt it will take much time at all.

I'm honestly shocked at how easy it is to cook up a tremendously awesome, literal dream nursery without having to spend a lot of money. All you have to do is be patient, and on the lookout constantly. For example we have this amazing crib, one of those solid wood convertible ones that turns into a daybed for when the child is a toddler and then AGAIN to a full sized bed for when he's older. It normally would be laughably out of our price range, but because my mother happened to find a factory return with no mattress at an outlet store we snagged it for $150!!!! We've been so *lucky* lately, it's the only way I can describe it. It just seems like everything keeps happening the way it's meant to, you know?

Cosmic Creepers (our cat, for those who don't remember) is pretty confused and upset with us at this point, since the den had somehow become his room prior to all of this, unofficially. He had a totally sweet window to guard with a perfectly sized bookcase under it that he could lounge on the top of. The window overlooked the backyard, which is full of squirrels and all different varieties of birds this time of year, all of which he desperately loved to croak and squeak at. Now that he's locked out of "his room" he rebels by crawling all over the old den furniture that's now, for the time being, stuffed into the living room. This is what I woke up to this morning:


Cosmo the Couch King

I'll try to keep you guys updated on the room as it progresses. Also, if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears for them!

On the Up

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

This morning my mother, aunt and I moved my grandmother into the dementia unit at Ruth's House in Longmeadow, MA. It's been a long, exhausting process and I honestly feel I'm older now for having been through it, but now that everything is settled I'm just SO excited for my grandmother. They'll be keeping her busy while she's awake with lots of varied activities so that she doesn't have to sit on her love seat all day watching a tv she can't even hear. She's not Jewish, but since Jewish Geriatric Services, Inc. runs Ruth's House she'll be eating kosher now and that will help with her dietary problems. She rooms with an adorable little Irish lady who rarely speaks that everyone calls Froggie. I just think it will do her so much good to be in a place where she can go outside for a walk in the garden if she wants to (actual sunshine! No more artificial light!) or sit on the big patio reading in the shade.

I have my fingers crossed for her, although I admit it was nerve wracking watching her wheel away into the big crowd of strangers that will now be her every day companions. I felt like I was watching my child wander off toward his first day of kindergarten. Will they be nice to her? Will she make friends? Will she be lonely and hate it? Did we do the right thing? My grandmother is so brave, though. Even though she worried herself sick the entire drive over, she introduced herself to everyone. By the time lunch was being served she'd made so many friends that she was sitting with them all at the head of the biggest table in the dining room! She seriously blows my mind.

Now that she's settled somewhere safe, David and I can start living our lives for ourselves again again. We're staying in my grandmothers house (upping the number of generations of my family to have lived here at various times to FOUR!) and are now facing the daunting task of changing the house around to better suit us and the baby. It's a big job, but I'm actually looking forward to it more than I expected. I must be doing some serious nesting. The room we chose for the baby used to be my mothers room when she was small, and we're moving the giant antique mahogany record player into the dining room so that we can listen to our records while we eat. When the weather gets a little bit warmer we'll be putting in a new fence and planting an herb garden in the backyard. If anyone nearby feels like getting their hands dirty soon, I'll be doing a lot of painting in the coming weeks (before I get too pregnant). If you've ever visited my grandmother's house and are concerned, don't worry- her amazing psychedelic yellow and orange floral wallpaper in the kitchen is STAYING. I would NEVER be able to find anything more wonderful and I know it.

With all the fuss and turmoil lately, it completely slipped my mind that my 26th birthday is in EIGHT DAYS. I have the baby shower coming up in June, so it doesn't really make sense for me to have a big party or anything. If I had a housewarming/birthday dinner here or something, though, would anyone come? It won't exactly be last years crazy Manhattan extravaganza (understatement), but it'd still be nice to see everyone and to show off my new home once it's done.

I just had this incredibly insane thought- do I actually have EVERYTHING I could possibly ask for right now? My grandmother is safe and getting the care she needs, my family has been brought closer together because of it, I'm having a baby (who, in utero at least, has an appreciation for the theremin) with a person I love and adore, we live in our own house. Wow, just wow.

If you need me, I'll be upstairs blissing on that for a little while.

Family; David and I move in

Monday, February 25, 2008

Apologies for the lack of updates- there's been some major changes in my life lately (what's new?) that have been dominating my time. David and I, after living in her house for a few weeks, officially moved into my grandmothers basement now that she's home from the rehab hospital she was in for a fall she had about a month ago. She moved back in upstairs; David works his new job in Northampton every day and I take care of my grandmother since it would be impossible for her to live here alone. As a family we collectively wanted her home and out of the hospital as quickly as possible, and David and I's moving in downstairs was the only way. I listen to her all day on a baby monitor in case she falls or gets confused, and she also wears a gym teacher-like whistle around her neck to blow on in case she needs me. It's been slightly bizarre and sometimes exhausting, but as of this moment I think everything is going to be alright.

David is amazing- I really can't stress it enough. Even though he had to be up at 7 for work, when my grandmother was furiously blowing her emergency whistle at 5am this morning for no concievable reason he wasn't just understanding about it but SUPPORTIVE of ME before and after- asking how I was feeling, telling me to slow down, making sure I wasn't taking too much on at once. He cooks elaborate old Irish lady dinners for her and sits with she and I in the den when Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy are on. I can't imagine a lot of people making the sacrifices he's made for me and my family after only having been a part of our lives for 9 short (but intense) months. We're a tight-knit group; it's almost impossible to endear yourself to us as an outsider (ESPECIALLY as a boyfriend of one of the only two girl cousins- you should hear some of the "I brought my boyfriend home for Christmas" horror stories that Erin and I have) but David's baptism by fire over the past week has won him a firm place. There's no question about it for any of us- he's a part of our family now.

I've noticed something interesting about my family in all of this, and it's not necessarily good or bad: even though we're all devoted to each other in an almost unhealthy way (we all live within 15 minutes of each other and readily lay down our time, effort, money, etc. without any hesitation at all if a family member needs us), at the same time not one of us will allow any other member of the family to DEPEND on us or vice versa; independence and self reliance have been bred into me as law since birth. We're to receive help resistantly until we don't need it anymore and then pull back again. So here I am living with my 77 year old grandmother, doling out her pills, cooking her meals, helping her to and from the bathroom, but all the while there's this... strangeness about it. Apart from how strange it is to take care of someone in this way who was a respected authority figure your entire life anyway, there's another element to it. Her medical outlook isn't exactly the brightest, but we both (and everyone else too, really) expect her to eventually do all of these things herself again and so we both treat the care-taking in this sort of blase, all-business way. I wish I knew a better way to explain it. Not being able to take care of ourselves is almost a fate worse than death, and if the time ever comes when we can't (in any way- medically, emotionally, financially) we're to take the smallest amount of help we need, regardless of the onslaught that will inevitably be offered, and then get back on our feet ASAP. If not, you pay by losing respect- not just from the family but for yourself as well, by some magic of massive internal guilt.

Also (for those of you on the astrology tip) I think the abundance of major planets in Aquarius and Capricorn (sun or moon in 7 of us, all of the main clan except my Aunt Beth and cousin Erin) within my family can't be overlooked either, or the fact that my (usually less than welcoming) grandmother warmed up so quickly to David, who shares a Cancer moon with her deceased (and sorely missed) husband, my grandfather.

Every once in a while, when I have the time to think about it, it really dawns on me how completely different my life is from how it was just a year ago. Every single thing is completely different, down to what I want out of life AND how I'm going about it. It's been hard but I feel like I'm really working toward something now, you know? I know who I am. No matter how much harder things get from here on out, and I expect them to, I have that now- and knowing that seems to make a lot of things a hell of a lot easier.

"I call him Cosmic Creepers because that's the name he came with."

Friday, February 15, 2008

aka: The Part Where I Talk About My Cat On the Internet

In October, right before we found out I was pregnant, David and I took in a stray cat that had been living under a wood pile behind an apartment complex next to our old place. A regular at the bar we used to live above spotted him under a car, and after trying several unsuccessful times to lure him out he finally got David's attention. The cat (like most small, adorable things) instantly took a shine to David and went running over to him, purring and such. So when I came home from visiting my parents that day there was an tiny black muffin in my apartment, and what choice did I really have? After that he quickly became a part of our family, fleas and all (well, we evicted the fleas).

Cosmo (short for Cosmic Creepers, named after Ms. Price's cat in 'Bed Knobs and Broomsticks') is definitely an eccentric. Despite being, as far as we know, feral for the first 6 months to a year of his life, he's a complete cuddlebug and also a total feline genius. Even though he's got a few odd habits (we call him a trashcan cat because of his affinity for things like trash, bathrooms, and rolling around in dust), he repeats the things I say back to me by meowing with the same inflection I put on my own words. I think he believes David and I are the biggest, ugliest cats he's ever seen and is desperately trying to communicate with us the same way we try to with him: mimicry. A commercial came on television once where a women's voice called "Coffeeeeeeee!" in a similar way to how I say his name, and from the next room he meowed back, thinking it was me looking for him. I speak to him in an alternate language that his being so fucking adorable just naturally brings out of me; I'll spare you the details, but there are a lot of b's and o's in it. He's been my constant companion through this sick, hard pregnancy and all the long days I've had to stay home on the couch. He's been invaluable to me, keeping me sane with his general awesomeness.

(Cosmo's very important input: "nm jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjh bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn")

The week before we moved, we had to scramble to get all of his medical work done. The Saturday prior to the move he got his first round of shots, dewormer, etc. That was traumatizing enough for him (he fights us whenever we try to take him anywhere slightly resembling "outside" - apparently he has no desire to ever return to his woodpile existence), but then the following Thursday he was neutered. Since he's an older cat (the vet thinks he's about a year old) the surgery affected him differently than it did ever other animal I've kept, who were all neutered or spade while very young. Honestly, I wasn't sure he'd ever be the same. For days and days and days he sulked around, never meowed, his breathing was irregular, he didn't show any interest in affection. I was sure we'd killed his spirit and was had made up my mind never to forgive myself. I had to literally chase him down and stuff him into his cat carrier to bring him here to my grandmothers house in Springfield, and he glared at me from the backseat the entire way.


(an idea)

Amazingly enough, he's taken to my grandmothers house in a way I never expected. Maybe it's because he has so much more room to move around now, or because there hasn't been any other animals here since the 70s, but Cosmo has officially decided this house is his home. Within minutes of being let out of his carrier he was running around, exploring, not shy at all. It was like he came back to life instantly! He sits in front of the den window for hours looking out at the squirrels and the crows in the yard; his body literally shakes with excitement. He runs around and plays just like he used to, except now he has lots of different places to hide. And, thank god, he's vocal again- every time I get up at night to pee (this happens approximately 14 thousand times) he follows me down the hallway like a toddler, meowing and bouncing alongside of me. He basically is attached to every part of this house, which is a LITTLE unfortunate considering we'll be moving into the basement next week (when my grandmother comes back; she hates cats), but once we get down there he'll have an entirely new universe to explore. Cross your fingers!

I won't get into the logistics of living at my grandmothers yet, only because it seems so time consuming and probably boring to type it all out. I will say, though, that the second night we were here I had a dream about my grandfather. He rang the doorbell (to the house he lived in for 50 years) and when I answered it he came in, dressed up in his winter gear, smiling and asking us how we liked the house. That's got to mean something, right?