best mother's day gift ever

Terzo told his preschool teacher that Mother's Day meant that you had to be your mom's slave for the day, and do everything that she tells you to do.

I took full advantage of this mindset.

Remember my plans for the closet upstairs? Unfortunately the space had been torn apart, first to store all our junk while we painted the other rooms up there, and then to have carpeting laid. Before everything was carried back upstairs, we decided to get the room finished up once and for all, because goodness knows we didn't want to have to empty it again.

The first step was to fix the lighting in the room. It doesn't have any windows or overhead lights, so my dad had to come up and help me install track lighting. Pre-lighting installation and fan blade repair, the room and my dad looked like this (the drywall is where a leaky skylight used to be; the lamp was the only source of light in the room):

My dad still looks pretty much the same, but now I have eight lights on the ceiling and brand-new white fan blades. I had a tough time reinstalling the fan blades after changing them out, but the upside to Primo's growth spurt is that I now have someone taller than me who can help me, when he is so inclined. Usually the involvement of power tools means that he is so inclined.



Once the lights were in, we were able to choose from among the wide variety of yellow paint samples on the wall.

I have many, many tiny little jars of yellow paint left over, but I wanted to make sure the color was just right -- after all, we all know what a crab I am about paint color, and I would have no one to blame but myself if the color wasn't the light butter/sunshine yellow I wanted. And what fun is it if you don't have someone else to blame? For the record, I went with the middle color, Golden Honey, and it is perfect.

The painting crew went to work Saturday afternoon on my Mother's Day gift.

Everyone got in on the act, because Hey! Slapping yellow paint on a wall is fun, at least until you get tired of it.



They lasted through 87% of the job, and my LSH finished it up. I spent yesterday putting the room back together, as they hauled everything upstairs. (The commentary went something like this: "Here's another box with yarn. And another. And a basket with some more yarn. And here's some fleece... And some roving. Boy, you really don't need any more yarn or wool, do you!" I feigned deafness.) Now the room looks like this, but a little more yellow:



But the best part is this touch, which was my birthday present:

See that black thing, in the middle? It is my very own TV and DVD player.

MY VERY OWN. MINE. Upon which I can watch WHATEVER I DARN WELL PLEASE.

Being the only female in this house, I don't get much say over what is on the family TV. If I said, "Hey! Masterpiece Theater is playing Jane Eyre tonight! Let's watch it!" everyone would groan and I would end up staring at Dirty Jobs before I knew it. I have nothing against Dirty Jobs, but sometimes a girl wants to watch Jane Eyre or In Her Shoes all the way through, without having to endure any muttered comments about "chick flicks."

So yesterday while I was organizing my room, I put on a copy of Jane Eyre. And of course everyone piled into the room to see what I was watching and was very disappointed when the ending wasn't properly recorded.

Reverse psychology. Works every time. I'll have them watching Pride and Prejudice and debating the merits of the various adaptations before they know it.

All I have to do is install a lock on the door and insist that they not come in.