Painting Redo

I knew as soon as Duncan put all the stuff out for the painter that someone was going to have a heyday.

This week has gone so much better than last.  Well, mostly.  Duncan got a referral from a colleague at work (is that redundant?) on a great painter.  He did an admirable job painting three colleagues homes so we felt pretty good about this one.  The downside is that he has to be picked up and dropped off since he has no car.  No matter.  It's worth it!  Duncan picked him up Tuesday morning and he jumped right in at fixing the mess that was left behind.  His name is Jaime (pronounced Hi-Me) and unfortunately Aubree has taken to calling him Hiney but at least not to his face.  He's a very hard worker and barely stops to eat.  He was here for three days and got everything fixed and also painted our dining room and master bedroom.  Next week he'll come for a few days to do our pantry, closet, guest room, and whatever else we get around to deciding on paint for.  Major relief to have this done.

Our bedroom. Never been a big fan of blue walls but Duncan picked this out and I do like it.

Dining room done and our new rug.  Now we just need a table.

From another angle.  Clearly we need a lot of other stuff besides just a table!

We now have our bar chairs.

Laundry room.  One of the few places that didn't need anything touched up.

Having him here, or should I say having to drive him home, was not without it's scheduling conflicts.  As you all know, Tuesday was a big day.  At our old house, we would wait in line, at most, five minutes to vote.  I've been in Florida for the three preceding presidential elections and voting was just no big deal.  I was in and I was out.  Well, now I'm in Orange County as opposed to Seminole County and I don't know if that made the difference or what but it was CRAZY.  In retrospect, I should have done an absentee ballot (or voted early although I heard bad stuff about that) but I wanted to do it on the actual election day to make it a "thing" for the kids.  Wrong!  It started bad when Duncan went first thing in the morning and said the line was super long.  I figured maybe it was like that because everyone went right off.  Still bad at 8:30 and 10:00.  I decided I would go after we went to the mall around noon.  But then I had gotten Jaime a hot lunch at the mall and wanted to get it back right away for him (not that he ate it right away as it turned out) so we didn't go.  Duncan went back around 2:00 and it was about 20 minutes but I had just put Brady down for a nap.  Allen got there at 4:00 and said it was a 20 - 30 minute wait but Brady was still sleeping.  Finally, he woke up and we rolled in to the polling station at 5:00.  Very bad idea.  It was at least an hour wait and I couldn't picture myself standing there with the kids for that long (girls, yes.  Brady, definitely not).

You are probably thinking, well, just wait until Duncan gets home from work and leave the kids with him and then you can go by yourself.  Yes, that does sound wonderful, doesn't it?  Well, some bonehead at an organization that Duncan serves on a panel for decided to have a meeting on election night.  Seriously??  I was completely appalled.  But he had to go.  Thankfully Allen graciously offered to watch the troops so I could go back about 6:30.  He assured me that in previous elections he had waltzed right in at that time with no wait.  Wrong again!  I got there and it was backed up even farther than it was at 5:00.  So here it is at 6:35, with more than an hour wait in front of me, my kids are at Allen's (and I'm thinking that it's a school night for Braelyn and they like to get to bed early) and then I still have Jaime at my house painting who said he would like to leave for home at 7:45.  I had no way to reach him to tell him I was running late (I've since found out he does have a cell phone but I couldn't even reach Duncan to get the number if I had wanted to).  I felt like my candidate really needed my vote and after encouragement from my family who I was fervently texting to express my frustration, I stayed in line.  I sent texts and called Duncan to tell him this was an emergency situation and he needed to get home but to no avail (later he would tell me he was at a podium speaking and his phone was going crazy.  Oops!).  After an hour and ten minute wait, I finally got my ballot and it became partially clear why the line was so bad.  There were three ballots with two sides to them.  If you actually read everything you would seriously be there for hours.  Fortunately, I already knew everything I was doing and I whipped through it in like three minutes.  On the way out, I heard one of the polling volunteers say that this was one of the biggest precincts in Orange County and that's why it was so bad.  Lesson learned.  In the end, it was all a bust anyway because my vote didn't matter and my kids never got the election day experience.  Incidentally, the polls did close at 7:00 but as long as you were in line by that time, you were good to vote.  My favorite part of the whole evening was when I got a call at 7:55 pm from my party reminding me to vote.  And maybe that's why my party lost.  Shouldn't you have been calling, say a few hours earlier, when people could actually still vote?

Kids at Isidros while I did my civic duty.

I left at 7:45 and raced home to tell Jaime I was picking up the kids, went to Isidro's to get them and change Brady into his pajamas, back to my house to pick up Jaime, on to Apopka to drop him off, back home to get the kids in bed, and then finally sat down to breathe for a second.  It was quite a day.  I'm glad I didn't have to stay up super late on the edge of my seat for the election results.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I think I was still up until 1:00 am although I had definitely tuned out any election stuff by then.  I was curious to see if the girls would remember in the morning to ask who won.  Sure enough, after about five minutes, Aubree is the one who asked.  When I told her Obama had won, she said "That's okay, Mom.  Maybe next time Mitt Romney will win."  I decided not to get into any deep political discussion on that.

Aubree sad about the election results.

Wednesday we did a little shopping for some home decor (another major bust) and then that evening Calleigh had Adventurers.  Thursday we did a Costco run where we saw Allen and the twins on their way out while we were on our way in.  I didn't really need much of anything but I decided to go for some samples.  I ended up buying a few things after all, although I'm not sure we really needed some of it.  Sometimes you just get sucked into buying stuff.  The samples were kind of crummy too.  Oh well.  I shan't complain about free stuff.

Doesn't Kohlden have just a killer smile?

Thursday evening I took the kids for a walk and we met some new neighbors, Lori and Christopher.  They don't know us but we actually knew a lot about them.  They have the same house/floor plan a few doors down and there's is the one that we kept hoping that the appraiser would use in our appraisal since they paid a LOT more than we did for ours.  But alas, it was purchased a year ago which was too long ago to count.  We had heard they had four kids but it was actually three, the most important one being a 6-year old girl named Olivia.  Naturally, Calleigh and Aubree were thrilled and the three of them immediately bonded over some sidewalk chalk.  I'm sure we'll be seeing much more of them.  They have two older boys so they have the inverse of us.  Lori is a stay at home mom and she mows her own lawn so perhaps I need to be inspired.

After a week's hiatus (due to Jacksonville last week), we were back on the yard sale circuit this morning.  There were many sales but yet very little of interest.  That just sometimes happens.  Still, it was a beautiful day outside and honestly, there aren't many things that can beat doing yard sales on a beautiful 68 degree fall day...unless I was doing yard sales on a beautiful 68 degree fall day sans kids.  It's not that it's not fun with them it's just the getting three kids in and out of car seats a million times does tend to drag a little.  Calleigh used to be able to get herself into hers but then earlier this year we got her a new car seat and it's been too hard on the new one.

In other news, Brady Brother is slowly but surely growing up.  This week I've finally given in and started letting him feed himself his yogurt.  He's been using a spoon for quite some time but I would feed him at the same time.  I finally threw in the towel.  Sure, it's incredibly messy and he eventually switches to his hand but that's why we have washing machines.  The important takeaway, though, is that he uses his left hand with his spoon.  I've noticed this from the get-go and I almost hate to mention it and ruin anything but I'm pretty optimistic that it's possible I could have my lefty.  He definitely favors that hand with everything.  Kids change though so I'm need to be patient for at least another six months and see how things are going.

Well, I didn't say he has the mechanics down of self feeding, per se.  No wonder he switched to his hand.    It's a rather awkward grip to maintain for a whole yogurt.

The talking is coming along too.  He is gaining new words every week including the favorite "no" which was recently added to his repertoire.  Some others that I can think of off the top of my head are "rock," "more," and "dog." (Although, to be clear, the "more" and "dog" do not go together.  We are not getting more dogs). I know there are others but you know how things go with the third kid.  He also seems to be saying "Aub" for Aubree.  There is no question that he is significantly behind the girls at this same age which we are easily reminded of when we watch the movies.  Not unexpected, of course.

Another thing is that he has gotten to that age where he expects everything that the girls get.  You can't sneak anything past him.  If he sees the girls with something, he must have it too or he will scream from kingdom come (and I really mean that.  People talk about girls screaming or screeching but seriously, no girl has anything on this kid.  It's mind numbing sometimes).  It can even be little things like cleaning our hands with hand sanitizer (or as Aubree calls it, "hanitizer" which honestly makes more sense).  If he sees us putting some on our hands, he marches right over and puts his hands out.  He refuses to be left out!  A few weeks ago I had served the kids quesadillas, a favorite for all three of them.  I gave it to Brady in bite size pieces as I usually do which he usually gobbles up.  This time, he wouldn't touch it and just fussed and cried.  I could not figure out what the problem was.  Finally, it dawned on me.  He sees the girls eating their quesadillas cut into triangles and he wants his to be the same.  Sure enough, I served it to him the same way and suddenly he was happily eating them again.  Good grief.

Any problems with the time change?  I may be in the minority here but I actually like the time change from the perspective of it getting darker earlier because it reminds me that Christmas is right around the corner.  But how early it gets light in the morning?  Yeah, I could do without that.  Sunrise is now at 6:45 and it's hard to sleep later when it's bright out.  However, for some unexplainable reason, Brady is back to sleeping later again.  You would think it would be the exact opposite because when it's 7:00 now, it used to be 8:00.  Regardless, I'll take it.  I may not be able to sleep in but I will happily accept him doing so.

In closing, I am happy to report that the kids are getting a new cousin.  No, no, Ricky and Ana aren't having a kid...that I know of.  Duncan's brother Rob and his wife Diane are having a baby boy in April.  They currently have Jake who is eight.  This will make a total of five boy cousins and two girl cousins on Duncan's side of the family.  We're very excited for them especially for Jake.

 That's a wrap.  And wow, we're even on this side of midnight.  Amazing!  Have a Happy Sabbath!

Should I be worried that he loves to wear his sisters' flip flops?