This post is doing double duty …

Part 1
Kaya’s room has undergone a miraculous (and slightly exhausting) transformation this weekend, from princess pink to pre-teen blue and green. Here’s a before picture, though it wasn’t originally taken to be a before picture, so it’s not great. I forgot to do an official pre-painting shot. But this way you can see the pink.

Kaya picked out that color when we moved in five years ago. She was 7, can you believe that? Hard to imagine we’ve been here that long. Anyway that was back in the princess years, everything pink and purple, and she’s been begging for a new color for at least a year or two.

We’ll post after pics as soon as we get the room put back in order. It looks good!

Along the way, we learned a few very valuable lessons, and I’d like to share, so your next painting attempt isn’t quite such an ordeal:

1. Do not wait until the second day of painting to start drinking, especially if you are the only adult involved in the project. Include an alcohol run with the initial trip to the paint store. I will not make that mistake twice.

2. Do not necessarily trust the paint store guy. We went to Lowe’s, one of those places you automatically trust has employees with a base level of knowledge (like SuperCuts or the hospital). But our guy started out by telling me I was “putting him on the spot” when I asked how much paint I would need to cover a small bedroom in two colors — not a good start. He then assured me two quarts, one of each color, would be “plenty” and I would even have leftovers. It didn’t seem right, but he was so confident. When he handed me the paint after mixing it, he said, “Whew, that’s a close match! I wasn’t sure it would be because I was paying attention to that other customer while I was doing it!” Then he ridiculed my choice of cheap rollers, but I held my ground and explained this was for a kid’s room, not the Taj Mahal.

3. When you go back to the paint store the next day to get more paint because the rude paint store guy gave you WAY, WAY less than you need, find a nicer paint store guy and tell him every detail of the other guy’s mental problems. He will sympathize, even saying “I don’t like that guy – he’s pushy!”, and then he’ll tell their boss.

4. Did I say alcohol helps? Alcohol helps.

5. Don’t buy fancy “painter’s tape.” Masking tape is the EXACT SAME THING and costs at least five times less.

Part 2
Okay, so that picture up there? That’s a shot of Zoe drooling as she stares down the little brown bird sitting on the fan blade above. Moments before, it had been in her mouth, and moments before that, it was flapping around our living room in a major panic. I have no idea how it got into our house — it was there flinging itself against the windows and the mirror when I got home from work one day a week or two ago.

Beth knows this story because she was on the phone with me when I walked in the house. She heard the whole bloody mess, including my screaming and then the pained shrieks of the bird when Zoe caught it. (I figured that’s my little way of sharing the down-home Midwest experience I know she must miss every day out there in LA.)

Chip comes home a few minutes later, changes out of his work clothes, marches straight into Kaya’s room and shuts the door. I hear crashing, stomping (?), huffing and puffing, then, “Zoe!! Stop that!!” I’m right outside the door and open it to let Zoe come running out, asking only briefly why he shut the cat in the room during his bird rescue attempt.

He emerges a few minutes later and says he “thinks” the bird went out the open window. Zoe runs back in to inspect the scene and sniff the leftover feathers, then scoots back and forth between the living room and bedroom in a suspicious frenzy for about an hour.

Welcome to Hillbilly Hill. Please send alcohol.