Second IKEA Story

I just realized that the "first IKEA story" (the one that was circulated by e-mail and inspired many "you really ought to have a blog" comments, which led to the creation of this site) has not been memorialized here - I will try to track it down and post it, because it really was terribly amusing. Well, not to us, certainly not then - but, with the passage of time, even we started to see the humor in it. For purposes of this posting, though, you only need to know the short version - after driving a gazillion miles out of our comfort zone to spend the better part of the day in the rat's maze that is the Frisco IKEA, we returned home with a room's worth of furniture for Son #1 . . . and spent the next week in IKEA/room remodel hell. Paint was spilled; hours were spent on the phone with Swedish tech support attempting to describe exactly which of the many nameless rectangular pieces of wood depicted in pen and ink on page X was the one that was warped straight out of the package; my usually sweet husband brought a store manager to tears; hardware disappeared into thin air; and on and on and on . . . .

Thereafter, Parnell remained resolute that it would be a frigid day in Hades before we would have another IKEA "experience" - that is, until this weekend. I've now decided that trips to IKEA are not unlike childbirth or having moles removed. You leave swearing, "No way I'm going through THAT again." But then a certain amount of time passes, and most of the unpleasantness is forgotten. And so it was that we all piled into the ranch truck, this time in search of new bedroom furniture for Son #2. We had high hopes that maybe, just maybe, this trip would be different. But NOOOOOOOO - the McGlinchey IKEA curse continues. Again, I'll stick to the highlights:

1. Departure was delayed due to (a) unscheduled Sunday morning trip to Care Now (office visit $162.00) to attend to Connor's suddenly very infected ear and (b) subsequent trip to pharmacy at Montgomery Plaza Super Target (ear drops $100.62; are they made of gold or something?).

2. Loft bed did not show up anywhere in store directory, notwithstanding fact that IKEA USA Web site (consulted en route to Frisco - mad props to the Google Android phone) showed 45 units in stock.

3. Found bed, bookcase and other oversized items and decided to purchase them first, then spend leisurely (HA!) hour perusing showroom and marketplace while children enjoyed Smaland experience. Spent a good fifteen minutes familiarizing selves with "self-checkout" technology.

4. Got halfway through marketplace and realized had put Blackberry down SOMEWHERE. Had become separated from husband, (obviously) could not call him, so had to swim upstream through marketplace to enlist his help in Great Blackberry Search. Pushed way through marketplace and back to warehouse (lap around IKEA #1). Found Blackberry (break in the cloud cover #1), which had been set down during first attempt to make heads or tails of umpteen thousand mattress options. Burned remaining portion of Smaland hour and had to retrieve children, who were cranky for being expelled from playland paradise.

5. Started shaking from hunger and made detour to cafe, where spouse and oldest child insisted on various menu substitutions that DID NOT COMPUTE in context of European-style cafeteria, confusing and irritating tray line workers and embarrassing yours truly. Despaired at fact that oldest child appears to have learned from the menu substitution master (his father).

6. Younger child insisted on trading PBJ sandwich for Mom's Swedish meatballs with lingonberries, confirming that older child's refusal to eat anything but macaroni and cheese really is a nature, not nurture, thing, and may not be as horrible a mother as suspect may be (break in the cloud cover #2). However, given state of exhaustion and hunger (coupled with fact that I REALLY wanted to eat my meatballs and lingonberries), found myself somewhat embarrassingly tearing up in IKEA cafe at fact that younger child is "adventurous eater." (Admittedly, the bar was set pretty low by the older child - I mean, it's not like Swedish meatballs are on a level with blowfish, but meatballs are a HUGE culinary detour given the precedent set by Son #1.)

7. Spent fifteen minutes reassuring distressed older child that his bunk beds only looked that small on the showroom floor, were MUCH larger and more imposing in real life, and did not need to be immediately replaced for being "too dinky." Finally told him that bunk beds on showroom floor were Bunk Beds 2.0 and NOT same model that exists in bedroom at home.

8. Fought hordes of lookyloos in showroom and marketplace, becoming separated from rest of family (who, let's admit it, fit the IKEA lookyloo description pretty well - easily distracted by bright, shiny objects) roughly EIGHT TRILLION TIMES.

9. Finally figured out what mattress to buy . . . and had to work way out of warehouse and back through showroom to retrieve corresponding, model-specific flat sheet.

10. Had to work way back through marketplace to rejoin family in warehouse (lap around IKEA #33).

11. Back through the self-checkout . . . .

12. EVERYONE had to use the facilities - staggered in five minute shifts.

13. Stood in line to buy lingonberry soda for ride home (having been deprived of lingonberry fix earlier in day). Discovered dispenser was out of ice and lingonberry soda was flat. Got back in line for refund. Cheerful IKEA employee responded, "Oh, yeah - the machine over THERE has ice and un-flat soda." Thanks - information that would have been helpful TEN MINUTES AGO.

14. More trips to the facilities.

15. Pushed three carts to the loading dock, spouse went to retrieve truck - and had to circle parking lot in holding pattern, because rude family backed into loading dock space that CLEARLY had been reserved by us standing there with our three carts. (IKEA rules, people! Learn them, follow them.)

16. White-knuckled the ride home, because spouse had rather precariously wedged (very lightweight) rolled mattress pillowtop under large carton, and - from my perspective riding on the passenger side - pillowtop looked poised to take flight at any second. Head filled with visions of spouse playing Frogger on 121 attempting to retrieve errant pillowtop and getting struck and killed in process (or, worse, having to return to IKEA for new pillowtop).

17. Spent three hours comparing loft bed pieces with various combinations of screw holes to wordless, line-drawn instruction manual. (Fellow IKEA shoppers, forewarned is fair-warned: the deceptively simple-looking Kura loft bed is anything. Each of the 12,647 support pieces has a different pattern of screw holes on each of its four sides. Thus, there are 2,678,943 - I'm using round numbers, of course - possible assembly combinations, and 2,678,942 of them are wrong.)

18. Spent another hour trying to figure out why last piece would not fit. (See parenthetical in 17 above.) Watched spouse literally try to force square peg in round hole.

19. Had to break news to spouse that bed pieces were never going to fit together because he had oriented one side of bed the wrong way. By this time, spouse had already taken apart footboard (for diagnostic purposes). Had to break news that nothing was wrong with footboard as originally constructed.

20. While attempting to break land-speed record to reconstruct unnecessarily deconstructed footboard, spouse lost grip on (very massive, very heavy) side piece to loft bed, which landed on top of my cranium, HARD, resulting in goose egg, possible concussion.

21. After finishing bed and preparing to move it into desired location (against wall, with existing Expedit bookcase turned on side underneath), occupant of room requested that it remain, essentially, in DEAD CENTER OF ROOM so that entire area under loft would be available as fort playspace. Had to redesign floor plan of room on the fly.

Was it worth the hassle? Ask the four year-old, who is over the moon for his tented loft/play fort combination:

Existing Expedit bookcase, with cubbies for toys, runs alongside the back of the fort, but not directly underneath it, for maximum play space. We attached a "home" for small stuffed animals and tap lights to the underside of the bed with adhesive Velcro . . . . These are photos of the fort space under the bed:

Mom likes having additional storage space in the room, courtesy of a second Expedit bookcase, and really likes the fact that the headboard (floating roughly in the middle of the room) will block from view any mess that the boys may make in the fort. Kitty Boy Max likes the repositioned train table, which is now under a big picture window, affording maximum Jimmy Stewart-esque "Rear Window" viewing opportunities for felines.

Big Brother Hosts My E-Mail Account

So I set up a Gmail account in the interest of keeping Junior Club business separate from - well, actual business - and a fair bit of my recent Gmail traffic has centered on Ways & Means merchandising (t-shirts, caps and other products bearing the JWC logo). One of our new items this year is a cooler bag, and I've traded several e-mails with folks about unit costs, initial order and so on. So one day I happen to look up and see a banner ad directing me to a wholesale tote bag business, and I realize - Gmail is profiling me. After that, I started paying attention to the substance of my e-mails and their interrelation to the advertising at the top of the Gmail page. Some of the connections are tenuous at best - a reference to the July 4th weekend generated an ad for a book about Ben Franklin? Others are pretty intuitive - an offer to purchase 3 x 5 grommeted flags in response to an e-mail about a tailgate - and some are just plain hilarious (a discussion about whether a particular event venue would permit alcoholic beverage service generated a link to http://www.dwi.com).

But the best one appears below. Here's the setup - I'm scheduled to be out of pocket most of the day tomorrow on a JWC-related "errand," and my spouse is somewhat less than enthused to be on kid duty for nine straight hours on a Saturday. (The fact that the errand is a fun one is not helping me on the PR front.) I sent an e-mail warning my Saturday partner in crime that I was getting some static from the husband side, and here's what I got from my friends at Gmail:

MARRIAGE WARNING. http://www.keepyourmarriage.com/ - Marriage Crisis? Unhappy Spouse? Here's What To Do Now. Guaranteed.

Gmail, it's so reassuring to know that you have my back. You're like Dr. Phil and Shop.com rolled into one.

Parker Sends an E-Mail

Dearppucfhgjk;loughdex Camden[;p;pl;[;[--[[;/[p9u77y,
Mom and I are reading "Peter Penguin and His Chatter Beak." What are you doing? I will see you tomorrow at school.

kijhkpoiiuh

parker

P.S.: batman

(Note: Parker really, really wanted to type an e-mail to his friend, Camden, but was somewhat handicapped by the fact that (1) he's just now learning to read and write and (2) neither of them has an e-mail account. Hence, this open message to Camden. Mom provided some assistance (but "parker" and "batman" were 100% PJ - typing included).

How I Know It's Summer

1. I spend an inordinate amount of time writing names on things (t-shirt and swimsuit tags, pool toys, etc.) and become apoplectic when I can't lay hands on a Sharpie marker.

2. I spend an inordinate amount of time inflating things (prior to writing on them; see #1 above).

3. My car starts to take on a musty aroma, courtesy of the damp beach towels and sweaty camp clothes that have taken up permanent residence in the backseat.

4. The front porch looks like a parking lot for roller blades, skateboards, Subskates, kickboards, inner tubes, etc., etc.

5. The chili and stew recipes have worked their way to the back of the recipe box, and it's been a week since the oven got any action.

6. Our monthly Ridglea bill triples (all of those poolside grilled cheese sandwiches off of the dollar menu add up!), but the grocery bill has dwindled to nothing.

7. We know when it's 10 pm on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night, because the dog starts freaking out when the Concerts in the Garden fireworks go off. (This is actually an item from the related list, "When You Know It's Summer on the West Side of Fort Worth.")

You Are Everything I Never Knew I Always Wanted

Parnell is very fond of the above quote from the movie "Fools Rush In" (and I'm pretty fond of it as well). Certainly it sums up our married life together, but to me it also represents those moments that we experience from time to time when, with the benefit of hindsight, we see the big picture come into view and understand how the pieces of our lives were intended to fit together.

A visit to the Cake Wrecks blog this evening took me to the blog site of a family that has lost two children - one at sixteen months and another at fifteen weeks gestation. They are pregnant with number three, and as I pray for a "happy ending" for them I am also struck by their faith - not a blind faith that they will suffer no more but a faithful belief that whatever happens will have a deeper purpose within their own lives and in the lives of others. Reading about their journey made me think about our own (comparatively miniscule) struggles to have our second child. Our first miscarriage (at seven weeks) was terribly sad and disappointing, and also disorienting - after an initial pregnancy experience that was absolutely textbook (well, until the last twenty four hours, when we discovered that our firstborn, stubborn and mischief-filled from the get-go, had flipped when he should have flopped, hit a growth spurt and got his head stuck in my ribcage, necessitating a C section), it honestly had never occurred to us that anything could go wrong.

Our second lost pregnancy (just past the fifteen-week mark) transcended sad, disappointing and disorienting - devastating is the only word that comes to mind. After that experience, our reality did a 180 and we began to wonder if anything could ever go right again. We agreed to take a sabbatical from all things baby; I focused on work, and on getting myself back on an even keel, mentally and physically, and together we focused on Connor. We traveled. We decided that there were worse things than being a threesome. And we decided that we would try one more time, beginning in March 2004. (Practical girl that I am - and 100% certain that we would have another boy - I wanted our boys to be exactly five years apart, so that all of Connor's hand-me-downs would be seasonally appropriate for the little guy.) Of course, I got pregnant a month before our start date - someone's way of taking away some of the anxiety, I suppose. My fourth, and last, pregnancy was not at all textbook - we had a myriad of scares along the way - but each time my precious little boy found a way to reassure me, moving in my belly at just the right moment and letting me know that he wasn't going anywhere until his "birth day."  Because he was a repeat C section, because his brother had been HUGE at 38 weeks, and because our doctor estimated that "Repeat" was even bigger than "Peat" (she was correct), his arrival was scheduled for two weeks before his due date. As the nurse was hooking me up to the monitors, one final wave of panic hit me: we had made it this far, but was it possible that he wasn't ready to join us? I voiced my concern, and the nurse immediately pointed at the monitor and said, "There - your first contraction." Someone - God? Parker? The former working through the latter? - had heard me, and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Well, almost the last piece:  when they placed Parker in my arms, the fog of those two failed pregnancies began to lift, and my perspective forever shifted. A voice in my head uttered what should have been an obvious truth:  had either of those pregnancies succeeded, I would have had my two children. But I would not have had the two children that I was meant to have.

Looking at my two boys, they are such obvious compliments to each other - one towhead blonde, one sandy-headed; one green-eyed, the other brown-eyed; one so scientific and frequently serious, the other prone to being silly and capricious. They balance each other, and they balance our family. I watch them together, when they are playing - and even when they are fighting - and they make perfect sense. I look at Parker as he sleeps, and I think, "You are everything I never knew I always wanted."

Ride 'Em, Cowboy(s)!

Tried to upload these to Facebook, but encountered uploading "issues." These were taken at H3 Ranch in the Stockyards, after dinner with Parnell's mom and my grandmother. (Japanese Palace was our initial Sunday night destination, but then we sampled H3's steak and proprietary "mop sauce" at the Beastro benefit at the Fort Worth Zoo, and we were hooked.)

Needless to say, the saddle barstools were a BIG hit . . . .

The Times, They Are a Changin'

My (first) baby is a fourth grader, and a Webelo Scout. Wow, you blink, and it happens. At the pool today, I got the distinct impression that his choice of deck chair, and his insistence that I have a splash ball catch with him in a particular location (the better to show off his pitching, and over-the-shoulder catching, skills), were fueled by a desire to show off for certain female age contemporaries . . . .

So you will forgive me my nostalgia in sharing with you these, the "greatest hits" of Connor's second grade creative writing assignments:

"The Zoo Letter":

Dear Mr. Manager, I would like to work in your zoo. I could help feed the animals. I could also help heal the animals. I could event help clean the exhibits. Sincerely, Connor McGlinchey P.S. I hate cleaning the exhibits.

"Letter to the Mayor":

Dear Mayor Moncrief, I think we should have a new water/theme park in Ft. Worth. Because it would make the kids happy. Plus it would make a lot of money. I hope you will approve. Sincerely, Connor

(Observations: Most kids would have stopped at "it would make the kids happy" - but, nope, not Mr. Future Business Leaders of America. Also, I was not aware that we were on a first-name basis with the Moncriefs.)

"Street Sign":

(Accompanying a drawing of a Jeep passing a "BUF XING" sign) My sign is important becuase your car may get hit by a buffalo. And I'm sure you don't want that to happen.

"The Adventures of Sherlock Snows":

Once there was a snowman. His name was Sherlock Snows. He was the greatest snow detective. The best of the best. He has even solved epidemics. Once he was a scientist and he found a cure to the worst thing in all of Snow Planet . . . global warming. This just in, Sherlock has just found the missing emerald, diamond and ruby that were stolen by Lefty Calohan [sic]. And he has jailed Lefty himself. Wait it turns out Lefty is a girl. In other news there is a new kind of Slurpee. It is called Banana Swirl.

"My Brother":

It was October 29th, 2005. [Editor's note: Parker was born on October 29, 2004.] I was just about to turn six. [Ed.: Again, a year off.] And I had just started to go to South Hi Mount. [Ed.: Um, no again - but at least we're being consistent.] It was after school. And I was happily riding my bike across the street. And after about two hours of riding [Ed.: Huh? Our attention span stops at the fifteen-minute mark.] my dad came out and got me. And he told me that we had to get to the hospital right away. So we went to the hospital and my mom was there. [Ed.: Wow, what a coincidence!] And my dad told me that my mom was just about to have my baby brother. So we talked to my mom, and then we went home and got pajamas and my dad put me in a Nemo scrub suit. And we went back to the hospital We waited for a long time. And at about midnight my mom's doctor woke us up. And he told [us] my mom just had the baby! [Ed.: Parker was a repeat C-section. He was born at 11:21 am, less than two hours after Parnell and I got to the hospital and 12 minutes after we entered the surgical suite. Connor and my parents arrived at the hospital about an hour after we did. The scrub suit thing is true - he had little doctor's scrubs with Nemo fish all over them. My doctor's name is Adrianne, and she probably would object to being called "he."] And so we went and saw him in the nursery. But he was asleep so we spent the rest of the night at the hospital. And in the morning the rest of my family was there and they gave me presents! And they said it was because I was a big brother! And they had presents for Parker, too! And finally Parker woke up! [Ed.: We know we're in the home stretch of the story! Because we are using exclamation points!] And he was so little and cute! [Ed.: Almost eight and a half pounds, at two weeks premature. The cute part is true.] And he loved his rattle. It might even be the biggest change of my life! [Ed.: Only child for almost five years . . . you THINK it might be the biggest change?]

Parkerisms (and one Connorism) - May 2009 Edition

En route to a birthday party for a boy named Dominic (child of a co-worker, and the boys attended Zoo School together, but it had been awhile since Parker saw him): "Is Domino black or white?" For a moment, I thought that we were going to have to have a talk about ethnic diversity and racial sensitivity - and then I realized that he thought that we would be attending a birthday party for an actual DOMINO and wanted to know if the birthday boy (or birthday game tile?) was black with white dots or white with black dots.

In the car on the same outing, mid-argument with his older brother: "Connor, do you know who I'm going to call on my Power Rangers flip phone when we get home? The cops. Because I have their number."

In response to a sassy "Oh, no, you dii-n't," from Connor: "Oh, yes, I DII-ID."

After confusing his elbow for his shoulder: "Yeah, I get those confused. But THIS is my bicep, and THIS is my tricep, and THIS (pointing to his back) is my erectus spinae muscle. Ha!"

After watching six billion Vulcans perish at the hands of a vengeful Romulan in "Star Trek" (sorry for the spoiler if you haven't seen the movie): "Mom, I REALLY like those guys [the Romulans]." I guess when you're the little brother, you start to root for the underdog. And we're pretty sure that Connor IS a Vulcan, as is evidenced by this interchange that took place during the aforementioned movie viewing (after Captain Kirk is marooned on a dangerous ice world):

"Why would they send him someplace dangerous?"
"Well, the computer told him to stay put and wait to be rescued. But he's too much of a hothead and blew the hatch because he was impatient."
"Mom, it's an ice planet. EVERYONE is hot-headed, compared to the air temperature."

I also think I heard him muttering something over the weekend about experimenting with nerve pinches. Care to guess who his first victim will be?

(Post-script: Further evidence that there are pointy ears lurking under Connor's hairline . . . . We were riding in the car, listening to the White Stripes, and Connor inquired as to WHICH seven nations would comprise the army that the White Stripes intended to fight off - "because their chances of winning, Mom, are dependent on the nations involved.")

Catchup Photos

Spent three of the last four days in bed with a case of "not piggy flu" (something respiratory, but not flulike), so I'm taking the opportunity to upload some spring photos . . . .

Blog for Robyn

Who was afraid she'd forget the details of this little snippet o' life at the McGlinchey house . . . .

We were leaving the house last night, heading (in two cars, of course) to the Ridglea swim team kickoff party, the plan being that I would excuse myself early to attend a JWC department closing dinner, and Parnell and the kids would hit up a grocery store-type establishment for milk, macaroni and cheese and other staple items that were depleted during the Great House Makeover of Aught Nine. (Yes, it looks awesome. Yes, I will take and post pictures once the stupid 29-inch woven woods arrive. Yes, it's a total pain in the rear to live in an eighty year-old house where none of the door and window openings are "standard.") Parnell remembered that I had to make casseroles for Teacher Appreciation Day (at the private preschool that did NOT close due to greatly overblown piggy flu panic) and asked if he could do my shopping for me. I said, "No, that's okay, it will just be easier for me to shop and cook in the morning." He insisted. I went into two-minute drill mode, looking for the recipes I'd torn out of Southern Living and put "someplace where they'd be safe and I'd find them." (Ugh.) Gave up the ghost, grabbed a United Methodist Women's cookbook at random, turned to vegetables and detached two pages, selecting two recipes completely on the fly. (My theory: anything in a UMW cookbook is (1) easy - as in "cream of mushroom soup-based" - and (2) highly edible, albeit sodium-laden and probably terribly fattening.) Circled said recipes and said, "Here's your shopping list" . . . .

Fast forward an hour, I'm wearing a red rhinestone-studded tiara and judging an impromptu karaoke contest (LONG story) and I get a text message: "Whiffed on red onion. Everyone in FW apparently making your casserole tonight." My response: "OK. Did you actually search every grocery store in FW to arrive at this conclusion?" (Not that I expected him to do so - I was merely asking him, tongue in cheek, to justify his assumption.)

His response: "No, only Wal-Mart. Sending CSM [the nine year-old] into Albertson's now."

My response: "Does CSM even know what a red onion looks like?"

A pause, and then the response: "Got it."

So I get home and actually look at the recipes for the first time (since I kind of just closed my eyes and pointed at recipes at random) - broccoli salad (the kind with bacon, grated cheese and a sweet dressing - those of you who work in the Seventh Street corridor and are familiar with Caffini's will be familiar with this recipe) and a Rice a Roni/Fiesta corn concoction. (I did mention that we're talking about Methodist cuisine, right?) Good enough. I begin chopping broccoli. (Fans of Saturday Night Live and Dana Carvey, sing the broccoli-chopping song to yourself as you continue to read.) I chop the onions. I go to retrieve the bacon bits and find none.

"Parnell, where are the bacon bits?"

"I didn't buy any."

"Why not?"

"I assumed we had some."

Okay, no problem. Bacon bits can be added in the morning - you know, the time of day when I was planning to get all of this stuff done in the first place. But I've chopped the broccoli and the onions, so I figure that I should at least make the dressing and let the stuff marinate overnight.

"Honey, where's the mayonnaise?"

"Didn't buy any."

"Why not?"

"We usually have that."

"Ooooookay. So, when I said, 'Here, these two recipes are your shopping list,' you interpreted that as, 'Buy only those items that you think we may not have'?"

"Um, yeah."

I attempt to move on to the rice/corn thing.

"Did you buy Rice-a-Roni?"

"Nope."

Editorial comment: We are NOT a Rice-a-Roni family - and certainly, given the size of our broom-closet-converted-into-a-pantry, we wouldn't buy Rice-a-Roni in bulk even if we DID buy it. Then I notice that he didn't buy ANYTHING in multiples. One can of cream of mushroom soup, one can of fiesta corn . . . for FORTY PEOPLE.

Very long story short - husband was dispatched to the store to buy: bacon bits; mayonnaise; Rice-a-Roni; MORE cream of mushroom soup; MORE fiesta corn; MORE queso dip; and another bunch of broccoli for good measure.

To husbands everywhere: We love the fact that you want to help. Really, we do. But when we say, "You know, it might be easier if I just do this without your help," THIS IS THE EXACT SCENARIO ON WHICH WE ARE BASING OUR ASSESSMENT. I'm just sayin' . . . .

And I'm NOT posting this to slam my spouse. He's the most helpful, accommodating male on the planet - everyone says so, and I would tend to agree. He's just, well, male. One of the great things about having boys is you realize that many of the things that you find challenging in your spouse are ALL ABOUT THE Y CHROMOSOME. When Connor was two, he insisted on "helping" me feed the cats. A second later - "Uh, oh - I spilled," and ten pounds of cat food were mounded over the spot where the bowl used to be. While that kind of help isn't always helpful, it does make for great blog posts, so there's the silver lining!

The Book of Redecoration (King Parker James Version)

Okay, so revised plan #6 (I'll spare everyone the details on #2 through #5):

A grand total of ONE full dining room wall is Mink. (Let's play HGTV and call it THE FEATURE WALL, shall we?)

When we put the primer over the green walls, they turned a lovely shade of pale bluish-green, and I could not help but notice how bright and expansive the dining room looked in a lighter color (Revelation #1). I also could not help but notice that the primer-created shade was not unlike Wyeth Blue, my initial color choice (Revelation #2). Benjamin Moore had been out of samples of that color, but I had grabbed a tester of Palladian Blue, which seemed to be a similar shade, on my way out of the store, intending to try it in the bathroom. I slapped some of that on the dining room wall and could not help but notice that it was the same color as several decorative accessories that were in that room (at that particular moment, heaped in a pile on top of the "Island of Relocated Furniture" floating mid-dining room) (Revelation #3).

I went back to the BM fan deck and discovered that Palladian Blue was on the same card as Wyeth Blue - just one shade lighter, and one of my initial concerns with Wyeth Blue was that it was a shade too dark. Revelation #4.

I called my mother, who had phoned earlier in the day raving about a brown room in Traditional Home that had a light blue ceiling. When I shared my successful experiment with Palladian Blue, she basically shrieked, put the phone down, and then I heard the sound of frantically turned pages before she returned to the line and said: "Ceiling paint: 1/2 formula Palladian Blue." Her coveted ceiling, my test patch on the wall - same color, with just a little extra white mixed in. Revelation #5.

After my trip through the Book of Revelations, we determined that the remaining dining room walls should be painted a diluted shade of Palladian Blue above a (currently non-existent) chair rail, with Mink below that.

Meanwhile, we'd already gone rogue in the living room, painting all but the area above the mantel a great taupe-y shade called Greenbriar Beige. At the last minute, we decided that Mink above the fireplace would (a) make the architecture of the fireplace jut-in more pronounced, (b) better highlight the art that hangs over the fireplace and (c) create a sight line from the dark brown fireplace area to the dark brown leather chair to THE FEATURE WALL.

As Mink out of the can looks exactly like Hershey's syrup, "Toast with Nutella" is out as a description for the overall concept. New name: "The Hershey's Bar with Almonds Suite." (Note to Hershey's parent company: Formal naming rights are available at a very reasonable price point.)

So . . . in keeping with the Biblical theme of this post, I can report that our rooms have received a (wait for it) coat of many colors. Second, and final, coat goes up tonight, with touch-up tomorrow. FYI, if you have never painted with Benjamin Moore, here's my testimony (STILL with the religious stuff): it is SO worth the extra money. No drips, no splatters, and you can pretty much get away with one coat. Can I get a witness from the congregation?

Chair rail was purchased at lunch today. I had text messaged Parnell (1) the SKU information, name, dimensions and pricing of the molding I selected along with (2) the relevant aisle number at Lowe's and (3) directions to said aisle. Notwithstanding the foregoing, he declined to make the purchase on his own, so I had to meet him at the store. Insert comment about general male/husband quirkiness here. (Btw, he was immediately on board with the chair rail concept . . . in part because it permitted him to break out THE LASER LEVEL. Okay, I admit it - the thing is terribly useful, and terribly fun.)

Can't wait to send photos, primarily because it will mean that our work is substantially complete, and we are all so ready to get to that point. Over the weekend, I kept hearing my Blackberry vibrate, and I finally realized that in our haste to move everything to the center of the room it had been transported (along with the centerpiece bowl in which it had been housed) to the interior of the Island of Relocated Furniture. Excavation ensued . . . . Now the remote for the dining room fan is missing, meaning that we cannot turn on the overhead light, so painting in that space has to take place before dusk. Oh, well - we work well under deadlines.

Here I Go Again . . . .

Long before I knew my husband, I knew what color the living room in our first house would be. I had carried around the image (ripped from one of my mother's home decorating magazines) since college - maybe even late high school. But that was then, and this is now, and after ten years of being defined by my "Cactus Pine" walls, I am ready for a change. Credit (or, if you're my spouse, blame) my friend Melanie for (1) picking the coolest paint colors for her recent home re-do and (2) letting me borrow the Benjamin Moore fan deck. I really, REALLY wanted "Wyeth Blue" to work for the living/dining rooms (and I do plan to use it in the master bathroom), but it lent itself to some of the same issues that I have with the current green walls. Fact is, we have a LOT of "personal effects" (okay, let's call them what they are - "tchotskes"), many of which are multicolored, some of which clash with the green walls now and others of which would clash with the blue (which is a really pretty, cloudy pale blue with green mixed in - but I digress). While I'm pretty much to the point where I could part with all of the tchotskes, shedding nary a tear, the boys (the big one included) aren't having any of that, so the solution, as I see it, is to create a neutral palate and minimize all of the visual distractions that I can - given that, evidently, we are quite sentimentally attached to some elements of our visual clutter.

So which neutral palate to create? Rugs that I want to keep, and our Mitchell Gold sofa (which has not lived up to its hype, but it cost a small fortune, so it's staying), are taupe-y (or, according to MG, "Toast"). Other upholstered pieces are a dark chocolate brown. Case goods, in keeping with the age and style of our home, are late 19th century/early 20th century Arts and Crafts pieces in tiger oak (a warmer brown, midway between the other two shades in terms of intensity). Did I mention that Melanie picked the best colors? The best of the best being her kitchen/dining/living room selection - "Mink," a luscious dark hue reminiscent of the richest, fudgiest chocolate fudge. I've been obsessing over it since I saw it at her place - but I wondered how it would work amongst our festival o' brown tones. And then, like manna from heaven, arrived this month's "Elle Decor."

Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on "The Godiva Room," above. TGR is owned by one Mr. George Stephanopolous and his wife, Alexandra Wentworth, with whom I appear to share my decorating taste. Toast-colored drapes against a chocolate fudge wall. Ingenious! I am totally stealing the idea - and Melanie's "Mink" walls to boot. To seal the deal, I made my weekly recon trip to my fave antique dealer at lunch today (having found, and passed, on the perfect storage cabinet for my currently furniture-less west dining room wall - reconsidered, went back, and it was gone!). Lo and behold, I found the most gorgeous piece - oak, leaded Tudor glass - but the stain was a little bit darker than our other oak stuff. Dare I say it, a mink-ish shade? SOLD! Totally justifies the color scheme, and will look so good as the focal point on that wall.

Or, I should clarify, one of the focal points. We have a lot of photos of the boys, and to say that they are eclectically framed would be an understatement. Goldleaf, silverleaf, dark wood, bleached wood, whitewash - we have it all. And I recently identified it for what it is - a terrible eyesore - particularly with the frames as they are currently haphazardly displayed about the room. Enter magazine clipping #2, from Southern Living:

Love, LOVE the idea of putting the photos on a plate rack, after repainting several of them (I'm keeping some of the gold ones, and the wood tones that match our furniture, but the rest are getting whitewashed to match the mantel and crown molding). Of course, with two boys, it's a foregone conclusion that all of the frames would vibrate off of their shelves and crash to the floor within the first fifteen minutes . . . . Enter ingenious gadget #1 - the "Frame Riser" from Pottery Barn.

Current, Connor-and-Parker-proof plan is to create a plate rack effect on the wall (can't afford a good one, so I'm going to get creative with pieces of crown molding and architectural salvage stuff) and mount the frames to the wall with their little frame-y bottoms flush with the shelves, so it looks like they are propped rather than hung, and the Frame Risers will allow me to move some of the frames to the front for a three-dimensional effect.

I also like the toasty wall color in the Southern Living image, and I'm considering making the fireplace wall an accent wall (using Benjamin Moore's "Taos Taupe").

Cabinet for the dining room arrives tomorrow, and I fully anticipate that I'll have acquired paint and started painting before then. I just can't wait to get started on our "Toast with Nutella Room."

Monday, Monday . . . .

When I fired up Pandora this afternoon, the first song on the playlist was New Order's "Blue Monday," which had me wondering - random chance or a wink from the Pandora gods (goddesses)? The next selection was an uptempo ditty by a band called Suicide Commando off of an album titled "Bind, Torture, Kill." At this point, I decided that Pandora clearly has a serious case of the Mondays - and also, evidently, has profiled me as a devotee of synth pop (which is somewhat true).

My Monday has been decidedly un-blue - I went to the dentist this morning anticipating that X-rays would reveal that I had fractured a molar, requiring both a crown and a root canal. Actual diagnosis - I am a princess, and the bleepin' pea is in my mouth. Even the smallest mouth "issue" (in this case, a slightly receded gumline) unleashes a furious bout of tongue-prodding, inflaming the nerves and making my teeth feel huge and out of place in my head. I go to sleep, grind on the offending teeth all night, and wake up in tremendous discomfort, ready for another round of totally counter-productive tongue-prodding. The prescription - Sensodyne and a custom mouthguard. Heck of a lot better (healthier, more economical) than a crown and a root canal. I'm wondering if I'll have an easier time sleeping through the night with the mouth guard in place. Goofy that I am eagerly awaiting the phone call to tell me that it's ready for pickup?

Mad props to Dr. Raulston for not selling me a bill of goods. If you are looking for a dentist in the Metroplex that will tell it to you straight, give her a call!

Spring Has Sprung

On Friday night, I volunteered at the American Cancer Society's "Relay for Life," registering participants in the ACS's third Cancer Prevention Study. This is the first time that North Texas has been included in a CPS. Like the first two studies (begun in 1950 and 1980), CPS3 will track participants over two decades in an attempt to draw conclusions as to how lifestyle factors make you more or less likely to develop cancer. Today, we accept as fact that second-hand smoke and obesity are connected to certain types of cancer, but we only know these things because of the CPS program. Thus - as the child of two cancer survivors - I felt privileged both to have the opportunity to help with the registration campaign and to get to sign up as a participant. The commitment is such a simple one - an initial blood sample and a survey in the mail every other year. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy . . . .

We got up early on Saturday morning and stopped by the TCU Athletic Department's annual "garage sale." We were looking for tennis racquets (not sure why - we have six or seven between the four of us) and other sporting equipment, but by the time we got to the stadium all that was left were football and baseball jerseys and other apparel items. Saw a lot of grown men buying used football jerseys and wondered - what do they do with them? Wear them to games? If you don't have an actual connection to the team (either played at TCU or have a player as a family member), isn't that kind of - well, silly? I did think about getting one to use as a table runner if we ever get our act together and start tailgating.

Then we went to Yoko Donuts (formerly Yoko Sushi and Donuts - two food items you don't often see on the same menu, and you don't see them on the same menu at Yoko anymore, either!), which may have the best glazed donuts I have ever tasted. Between mouthfuls, the kids shared their career aspirations with us. Connor wants to be an Air Force pilot/cryptozoologist/Lego designer (apparently simultaneously). Parker wants to be a superhero - specifically, the Blue Beetle. I admire him for going with a less obvious choice - less obvious means less competition, right? His choice also evidences a certain maturity in terms of recognizing his own limitations: becoming Superman was out of the question, since (unless Parnell has been keeping something from me for the last fifteen years) neither of his parents hails from Krypton way, but any mortal, I am advised, can become Blue Beetle. You just need to find yourself a magic scarab (or, apparently, the scarab has to find you).

Saturday afternoon I met with some Junior Woman's Club folks to discuss plans for our May home tour. Our club is housed in Margaret Meacham Hall, one of the most beautiful historic homes in Fort Worth. Very few people have been inside it, and we are hoping that they will be willing to pay $8 per head to tour the home and learn about its history. (At one point in time it was a funeral home, which makes me think that we're missing an opportunity -"Mimosas at the Haunted Mansion," the ultimate girls' night out fright house experience?) We'll be asking local antiques dealers to stage various rooms as they would have existed in the house's heyday. Hopefully, the event will be a big success and will transition into an annual event.

Finally, today was the JWC Easter tea. In keeping with this year's art theme, the tea was styled as "A Tour of the Easter Bunny's Private Collection." Loved, loved, LOVED the table decor (egg cartons as paint palettes!) and the giant egg "masterpieces" on the front lawn. Got a great picture of Parker between Warhol's Marilyn and a Picass-egg. But the "Scream" egg was my favorite!

Miscellany

Happy birthday to Robyn! (Okay, it was last week, but this is the first blogging opportunity that I have had in awhile.) Her birthday dinner was a blast - Tex-Mex and margaritas at Joe T's, followed by Black Forest cake from Ridglea CC. Baby Greenleigh (pictured here) is a recent convert to the BF cake (but, given that she's a baby, she's a recent convert to pretty much everything!). We gave her some at the Moormans' Christmas open house, and she was instantly hooked. Love the way that her eyes are tracking the cake in this picture . . . .

Is anyone else wondering why the billboards for the Kimbell's "Art & Love in Renaissance Italy" exhibition feature Joey Tribbiani from"Friends"? (If you live in FW, take a good look at the guy in the middle of the painting, wearing what appears to be the Renaissance equivalent of a black leather jacket, and tell me that he doesn't look like Joey, complete with the patented Tribbiani "How YOU doin'?" expression. Or perhaps one of the T-Birds from "Grease"?)

Seen on a woman shopping at the Montgomery Street Super Target: a t-shirt that said, "Life is Better Blonde." Did I mention that she was brunette? Like, REALLY brunette, and it was obviously her natural color? I'm hoping that she is a big fan of irony, because otherwise we're talking about someone with a major self-image problem.