Friday bullets, Jan. 22, 21

January 22, 2021

What a week, huh?

So remember when, over a week ago, we started the big switch moving bedrooms? Well, K. dove right in and got his room sorted out immediately. He has suddenly become a very tidy child.

He has D.'s old room, which is really more of a wide hallway between the two bedrooms on either end of the third floor. But when you've been crammed with two sisters into a too small room, even a wide hallway it pretty sweet. He is particularly thrilled that he is finally able to put up his Star Wars decals on his walls. He was pretty much organized about an hour after he moved upstairs.

G. and L. were not so lucky. With K.'s bed moved out of the room, we decided that this was the perfect opportunity to paint the room, since it was already as sixes and sevens. And it desperately needed a paint job. All the rooms in the house need one, but it is something we just haven't gotten to. Here are G. and L. scraping tape (sigh) off the walls so J. could paint them.

Yes, we have made our children live with these walls for over three years. It also meant the my motivation for doing anything to make the room look pleasant and coordinated was very low. J. spent last weekend painting, and now that it's done we can spend this weekend putting it back together. Here is what we have so far.

The walls are much better, right? Tomorrow we'll work on curtains and get I'll get L.'s duvet on her bed. I found matching duvets for them on sale; G.'s (in the foreground) is what they look like. It is going to be a significantly more pleasant room to be in.

It inspires me to work on R., T., and H.'s room next. Their room isn't quite as bad as the other, but it's not fantastic. This wall is particularly in need of a good coat of paint (or three).

D. has his things moved downstairs, but he still needs to do some actual moving in. I also have curtains to put up in his room.
Can you tell I did a big IKEA trip today? We needed these things, but yikes, it was kind of painful.
We have quite a bit on snow on the ground and until today it hasn't been horribly cold. TM took the younger people sledding earlier in the week.

K. is currently at the age where he believe coats are totally optional.

Aster is happiest when it is cold and snowy.

I spent some time this week working on fixing a blanket. It was a blanket I discovered balled up at the foot of K.'s bed during the great bedroom shift. After we washed it, I took a good look at it and decided it looked pretty bad, but was still a good blanket.

All the previous binding had come off and while you can't see it here, children over the years had started to shred the edges.

Of course, when I looked, I didn't have enough blanket binding to the edges, so decided to make some. (Because you know, all of my extra cash seems to go to IKEA these days.)

I have the binding pinned on, but there it sits waiting for me to sew it all together. Maybe after we finish bedrooms and I hem four pairs of curtains I can get back to this.

B. received his second Covid vaccine yesterday.
Apollo got neutered last Monday. He did just fine, though now he has to wear a cone for a week. He'll get it off after his next vet appointment this coming week. He is such a good boy. He hates the cone, but hasn't tried to take it off. He is also the only cat known to man who will take pills out of someone's hand. Well, G.'s hand. I'm not sure he would do it for anyone else.
I bought the Sunday newspaper on a whim last week. Everyone loved having a paper (and funnies) to read and I loved having a crossword puzzle to do. I felt pretty good that after four years of no paper, I could still finish the crossword. It makes me ponder getting a subscription again.
It's late, but before I go, I must share a couple of my favorite Bernie memes with you. No, I'm not tired of them yet. It feels good to good-naturedly laugh at something related to politics, rather than want to cry into my coffee. So, a few of my favorites...