Grown Up Valentines…

For some reason, my husband is in a competition with himself. He thinks he has to “one-up” himself every holiday. We’ve been together for 18 years and our first Valentines was spectacular, so you can imagine the three-ring circus he feels pressured to produce each year.  He’s really close to burning himself out. I mean, aside from buying me a seat on the space shuttle while Elton John sings “Rocket Man” from the seat beside me…how can he keep up this pace every Valentines Day?

I’ve tried to talk him down off the “Best gift ever” ledge many, many times. I think I may have gotten thru this year. And, not coincidentally, it was one of the best Valentines we’ve had in quite a long time. Imagine that!

Thank goodness he was swamped at work designing all the plant Monsters for EPCOT’s Flower & Garden show because he had ZERO time to train doves to spell out “I love you, Maryellen” in the sky.

Instead, he heard an add on the radio for a show I’ve wanted to see and secretly bought tickets. I was brought to tears when we drove up to the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center and I saw the sign:

 

It’s one of my favorite things. Sitting in a theater, curtain opens and I get to watch something. Someone or something entertaining ME! Awesome. Kids with our babysitter, sitting next to my honey, watching Witches sing their hearts out…

I was so happy and overwhelmed, I couldn’t wait to tell Mark. We both know baby sign language from teaching it to our boys so I laid my head on his shoulder and put my hand on his leg in the “I love you” sign:

 

Mark looked at me and smiled. We watched the rest of the show in what I thought was the warmth of our little, unspoken “moment”.

After the show, he turned to me and asked,

“Hey, during the show, why did you give me the Spiderman hand?”

“WHAT?!!”

(SIGH…)

Happy Valentines Day….no pressure.

 

“Real men have BIG dogs…”

I’m paraphrasing a bit, but that’s basically what Mark said when we first saw Wickette.

“I’ve always had BIG dogs. I don’t know if I want a small dog. How can you wrestle with a small dog? How can you play catch with a small dog? How can you snuggle up with a small dog?”

May I present my “REAL” man and his small dog……

 

3 Months of Halloween…

Halloween started in July for us. Mark was offered the job of Art Director of Busch Garden’s Howl-O-Scream this year and jumped at it. Was it because he wanted to make scary mazes for the masses or because he got to live in a hotel like a bachelor all summer? Hmmm…

Have you ever heard the saying, “The mechanic’s car is always broken down.”? I guess it’s not really a saying, but more of an ironic phenomenon. My Mom once called a company to come fix her car’s cracked windshield and the truck pulled up with a huge crack in it’s own windshield.  Well, whatever that’s called, we have it at our house. Thousands of people paid lots of money to see my husband’s amazing Halloween handiwork  at Busch Gardens:

And OUR house?  Well, you be the judge:

I feel sorry for women married to masseuses, chefs & gigolos.

 

Wind Storm Damage…Coincidence?

 

Mark set up the “work tent” in the backyard. He told me he was going to use the shade to clean out the garage. Then a storm came and did this:

Now he can’t clean out the garage. I’m going to check the “history” button on his computer. If the Weather Channel comes up…he’s in BIG trouble!

 

Two Steps Back To Go One Forward. What the…?

Shhhhh! I’m trying to channel Peter Walsh. Peter? Oh…Peter…? I need you desperately! Come in Peter…

I decided to give my husband the best Valentines EVER!  He’s always coveted our friend’s garage floor. It’s some fancy, schmancy, tri-colored, coating-they-use-on-the-space-shuttle kind of thing. All I know is when I heard it costs thousands of dollars, I laughed really hard. Then when I saw he was serious about wanting to get it, I gave him the “In your dreams when you win the lotto” look.

I did some research and found that this horrible economy would work in my favor for a change. I found a reputable company that said, “Will work for food”. So I hired them.

“Happy Valentines, Mark! I got you your fancy schmancy garage floor.” He was ecstatic.

This is what I didn’t know: EVERYTHING has to come out of the garage. It has to stay out of the garage for 5 days. 2 days to apply the “gold dust” and 3 days to dry. (Sigh.)

I was watching one of the hoarding shows and almost choked when I looked at the screen and then looked out in my yard…AAAAAHHHHHH!

The floor is done and tomorrow will be the 5th day. Let’s see how long it takes for everything to get put back inside. Anyone want to take bets?

BEFORE THE PAINT..

AFTER! A speckled masterpiece.

What did I get for Valentines? Absolutely nothing. Someone was too busy with his new garage floor and forgot to get me anything.

I wonder were he’s going to put his bed in the new garage?

 

Lizard Hospice…

The score so far: 2 dead Bearded Dragons & 1 Mountain Dragon that has refused to eat on it’s own and has been hand-fed by my husband for 2 months.

I think everyone should have a hobby BUT…

You're kidding me, right?

Doesn't this automatically make me "Wife of the Year"?

 I have to stop posting my angst over these reptiles because if they keep dying…I’m the prime suspect.

 

Massive garage clean up!

What I learned from my Ma…

Guilt, when used in non-lethal doses, can be a huge motivator. Husband’s worms scare the bejesus out of wife…she uses quivering lip and just enough guilt to make this happen:

Can you hear the "Sanford & Son" theme music?

This is just the stuff we pulled out of the center of the garage.  Then we pulled everything away from the back wall:

Left side

Right side.

What’s in the boxes? Crap we can’t live without. We haven’t opened the boxes once in the 2 years we’ve been here, but we definitely can’t live without it. Sometimes I get curious and think, “I wonder what’s in this box?” Then I get really tired and go back into the house.

I’m waiting for the show “Hoarders” to show up. I’ve called them several times.

Shelves were purchased and assembled.

2 of the 5 units that line the back wall. Nate testing the weight limit.

I woke up this morning thinking I had had “The Dream”. The dream that the garage is organized and I pull my car in and out of it all day long…just because I can. Then I realized that it wasn’t a dream. It was my dream coming to fruition.  1/3 of the project is complete. Shelves line the back wall of the garage and bins of {?} are neatly placed in their new home.

As I was sitting in a lawn chair, staring at the new shelves, I asked Mark:

“Why did this take us 2 years to do?”

“Because I wanted to do a pimped-out custom garage but we don’t have the money for that right now.”

“Nothing wrong with this quick fix until we do have the cash, right?”

“I dunno…seems wasteful to buy temporary shelves.”

“Mark, if we had gotten them when we moved here we would have been using them for 2 years already!”

“Still seems wasteful to me.”

{sigh}”I’m glad your worms got loose in the fridge.”

 

Worms in my refrigerator and a husband in the dog house…

Apple, anyone?

It’s 7am. I’m groggy. I have one focus: Must make Nate’s lunch.  I open the fridge, pull out the produce drawer and grab the bag of apples. I set the bag on the counter and reach in to…..AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! What the…?

“MARK!!!!!!”

“What happened? What’s the matter? Where’s the intruder?”

“In the fridge.”

“What?”

“Look in the fridge, Mark.”

“Oh, man! I guess the worms got out of their container.”

“Thanks, Master-Of-The-Obvious.”

“Geez, (he’s from Wisconsin)I’m so sorry, Honey. Those are the worms for the…”

“Stop! I don’t want to know. I just want them out of the produce drawer. Then I want the entire fridge immersed in bleach for 27 hours.”

“Mommy…I’ll get them out for you. Don’t worry. I’ll rescue you…even though they won’t hurt you because they’re just worms.”

My Knight in shining armor saves me from the evil, killer worms.

I could tell Mark felt really bad.

“I’m REALLY, REALLY sorry, Honey. What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Hmmmm….”

Stay tuned for photos of the massive garage clean up!

 

Back into the swing(set) of things…

The paint crew working diligently so we can install the swingset...? (notice the ladder leading up to the fake dormer)

The “painting of the house” phase of the swingset installation has begun. We have an entire crew working on every side of the house, or maybe it’s just one guy that follows me from room to room. All I know is, every time I look out a window, there’s a guy on a ladder with a caulk-gun looking back at me.  Yes, I said caulk-gun. You caught that did you? I thought they were hired to paint the house, too. Apparently, you can’t just paint a house. There are MANY steps before you can even THINK about picking up a paint brush. {sigh} Oh, my kingdom for a one step project.

Steps you must take before painting the house:

1.  Get city of Celebration’s approval to paint your house. (color chosen from the official Celebration’s paint choices book that you have to check out from city hall by leaving a $100. deposit.)

2.  Hang the official permission papers in your front window so everyone knows that you’ve gotten approval and are a rule-following, no-wave-making, left-my-spine-at-the-border citizen of Celebration. 

3.  Find and hire a painting contractor that can live up to my anal…um…I mean perfection-seeking husband.

4.  Warn said contractor about my husband’s expectations and make him sign in blood a private agreement that he WILL meet my husband’s expectations or both of our lives will be a living hell.

5. The house has to be “prepared” or “prepped” to be painted. This includes tearing off all the rotting trim from the house and replacing it with new plastic trim. (chew on THAT, you damn termites!)

6. The entire house has to be pressure washed. Mark was downright giddy because the contractor washed our fence “without even being asked”. I think it may be true love.

7. The shutters (which are fake) have to be removed and replaced, along with the fake screen on the fake window in the fake dormer which is on top of our house. (Hmmm…maybe we should have paid fake money when we bought this place.)

8.  The house gets not 1 coat of primer but 2. 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint. This house will be painted 4 times before they’re finished. 4 coats of paint for the house and I can’t even get 1 coat of polish on my nails. Where is the justice I ask you?

The best part about having the paint crew here is that Mark had 3 guys to help him lift the play-house onto the swingset’s platform!

"Mommy...is the play-house really up there?" "Yes Nate, it's really up there. I guess your 37 wishing pennies thrown into the fountain finally worked."

We have actual progress at the Hooper household. No pennies, but actual progress.

 

Swingless in Celebration…

It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. Which is a nice way of saying: “Swingset is still not up yet.”

The "journey" is fun as long as there's a tractor in your backyard! That was a slice of little boy heaven.

I have to say, Nate & Zeke have been pretty patient during this 3 month “swingset” construction. It certainly helps when the yard is transformed into a giant sand box for a few weeks and  then magically changed into a huge mud-pit when it rained. Fun for them…not so much for me.

"No, Mommy...I didn't touch the mud. Yes, I'm sure."

Sometimes I forget that Nate is only 4. (and he’s a boy)

“Nate, you can go outside and watch the construction, but please don’t get dirty. Nate? Nate?”  “Yes, Mommy?” “Did you hear me?” I asked. “Yes, Mommy.” he nods. “What did I just tell you?” “I don’t know.” he shrugs. {sigh} “Nate…look at me please…” I say, trying to do cleansing breaths. “I AM looking at you.” “With your eyes, Nate. You can’t just turn your face to me and still look at the tractor with your eyes!”  “OK, OK, OK…I’m looking at you, Mommy”. “Listen very carefully…please don’t get dirty. That means, don’t TOUCH the mud. Don’t go NEAR the mud. Don’t even THINK about the mud. Understand?” He looks up at me with this smirk on his face and says, “I’m thinking about the mud!” I was trying to be serious but how can you not laugh at that?

4 1/2 minutes later, I hear a knock on the back door. I go to the door and there stands Nate, stripped down to his underwear, covered in mud. “Nate! I told you not to touch the mud!” “I didn’t touch the mud, Mommy…I fell and the mud touched me.” {sigh} I took another deep breath and counted to  10. “Mommy! You counted all the way to 10…good job!” he praised. {sigh} “Thank you Nate. Nate? Where are your clothes?” “I took them off and hid them so you wouldn’t see all the mud on them.” he said, proudly.

At least the patio is in now. That means the only mud left is in the planter beds.

So close and yet so far...

The swingset is just sitting there…waiting…but each piece has to be sanded and then sealed…twice.

Mark splinter-proofing the swingset. Please take notice of the 2 new saw horses we had to buy for this project and compliment Mark on them because he's very proud of them. We went to 3 different home stores to find them. They're very special.

When a piece of wood has gone through the “Mark assembly line” and the 2 coats of sealer has dried for the manufacturer’s recommended time of 24 hours, then it’s ceremoniously screwed into the swingset. This is what we’ve got so far:

"Mommy look...I'm playing on my swingset!" How sad is that?

I don’t want to say that the boys are starting to get anxious but a picture is worth a thousand words:

Waiting....

I couldn’t stand to see him just sitting there waiting so I made Mark temporarily bolt the slide to the platform. Now I have to lift both boys up over my head so they can go down the slide.

Merry Christmas, boys!

{sigh} To be continued….