i'm here and alive

February is almost over and it hasn't been a productive month with me and the ever-present house work. Although we are painting the powder room and the ceiling is finished I am trying too hard to summon the willpower to paint the walls. I can't stand painting. Compound that with the loneliness of my nights off during night shift and, well, feel for me a little, will you? Anything is better than painting. Removing fixtures, taping lines and corners fill me with such dread and boredom I can imagine doing almost anything else at anytime during painting. For example, last night I was imagining getting impaled by a rhinoceros horn and thinking it would be much more fun. But the house needs some color so I will troop on. I took some before pictures and will post the finished product when we're done.

The kids are growing fast. Evan is much more advanced than Eric was at his age. One of the advantages of having an older brother I suppose. Evan identifies shapes and is learning his colors and speaking pretty well. That's not to say he's not driving us crazy because he is. I'd say he runs the household with an iron fist. So demanding. So conniving. But yet, so cute. And for this, I've ceased negotiations with my contact in Saudi Arabia to sell him to a camel race track. They like to start their camel jockeys young but his price was too low. With that face, he is worth millions.

We are getting ready to register Eric for kindergarten in a few weeks and had to fill out many pages of paperwork about our opinion of readiness of our child to play with freakin' toys for a half day. Hell, that's all I remember about kindergarten, except for one emergency room visit. He's been going to a kindergarten readiness class that was offered by our local public library and it's definitely paying dividends on the learning and social front. That statement is not designed to take anything away from the preschool he attends but there he has his friends and at the library he doesn't really know anyone and still looks forward to it. Anyway, he impresses me everyday with his observations and out-of-the-blue statements. The other day he asked Sue why daddy and him had to go to Walmart to buy lettuce before we went to the hospital to visit mom when Evan was born. That was over two years ago and never really discussed because he wasn't really talking then but still he remembers. And that's scary because you don't know what they'll retain at any given moment. Babies, toddlers and preschoolers are like human tape recorders. I suppose I should really watch my mouth and my actions. That might be too late though. The cabbage was for Sue's boobs by the way.

Plans are under way to move the boys into a bedroom together. We stopped by a bedroom outlet and were searching for bunk beds for the boys but I was immediately turned off by the schmoozing of the salesman. Because of this I may just get one at Walmart for probably half the price. One of the criteria for the bunk bed was to have steps instead of a ladder for safety. This may be out the window. I shared a room with my brother and we had bunk beds and I think I used the ladder once. I climbed to the top and knowing Eric like I do, he'll do the same. I think the only real safety feature of the top bunk is to have side rails. My dad was such a rebel I didn't have those and woke up on the floor more than once. Eric will have rails. Anyway, it's exciting because we'll have another room for our planned office; a place to store our stuff and maybe have a computer and definitely a place for Sue's embroidery machine, which currently resides in the dining room.

About a month ago Mark and I went down to South Carolina to pick up my mom's car to sell and do some estate assessment. The house is looking good. We moved our dad in after our mom had passed and it's nice to have life there. We went up into the attic and found some old paperwork and documents stating that my grandfather was married to another woman in Italy before he was married to my grandma. I don't know why that was such a big secret but none of us knew that including my mom I'm sure. I was unsettled by this at first because if the first marriage would've stuck, yours truly wouldn't be sitting here right now. Anyway, my mom's car is sitting out front and should have been sold by now but mother nature and her four feet of snow in the last month has kept it curbside, plowed in. It's weird to think about all the things in life that happen and we have to sort out as we get older. Personally, it's stuff I never gave a dime about. I'm thinking about it now because it's in my face in full color.

To end, I watched The Hurt Locker the other night. I thought it was a very good movie but I don't think it should be a contender on Oscar night like it is. The main character was very confusing. Did he have a death wish? Did he love his family back home? Any thoughts on this movie are appreciated.