Alright, so I'm smack in the middle of this floor project and I am questioning my color choices. Only sort of though. I had originally thought I would paint the floor something reminiscent of a sandy beach with a tan and white tile pattern. Then I remembered that white floors are in diametric opposition to my cleaning personality. Light tan/dark tan? Beachy-ish but potentially too 70s rec room parque floor...nope. Black and white? Too formal, and then there's that white again...inevitable disaster. THEN I thought of pulling from the colors off the walls...Sea Foam green and a light turquoise...hmmm...yep. Beachy...cute, I saw something similar in Cottage Living once, so there you go.

Then my kid suggested a purple instead of turquoise. I considered it for a moment. I mean, I really wanted to paint my bedroom Sea Foam green with lavender trim when I was 16, so I GET it...but no. I had to shut that down because it would look too umm....ice cream parlory (not that there's anything wrong with that). Yada yada, I picked a bolder turquoise today just 'cuz. Why the hell not, y'know? What's the worst that could happen? It's a concrete floor for crying out loud. If it looks horrible just carpet over the damn thing, or repaint it or whatever. Seriously. On it's ugliest day it couldn't be more tragic than that vomitous carpet from before.

The whole thing has been crazy enough that I have to go with it rather than be consumed by self doubt at this point. Just the fact that I ripped up the carpet is a pretty big deal. This reminds me so much of when my X left. I didn't have a discernable plan in sight then either; I just knew I was done with him and he had to go. I had faith that the future would work itself out. And it has. Not that I've been that great at navigating it so far, but I'm better equipped to deal with this chaos than anyone I know. I resolutely submit that any other girl subjected to his and his family's particular brand of manipulation would have been reduced to pulp by now. Me? Not so much. I'll get back to this in a minute.

For now the fun part about this project is that I haven't told them (the outlaws) about it yet. I haven't even told them about the dead TV. When they find out I'd rather do without a carpet or a mongo TV than rely on them for assistance they will fall all over themselves to fix it. Here's the thing, if I had lamented to them from the outset about how much I HATED the carpet or how I'd accidentally busted the TV they would have ignored me entirely and on purpose. They hate giving me things I want. It's only when I tell them how much I don't want or need something that they thrust it upon me with ferocious velocity (i.e. thanks for the Fry Baby despite my many vehement protestations). The more I resist, the more they'll pursue. I swear to god, they can't do it any other way. Bre'er Rabbit may have been the most useful story my mother ever read to me. The trick is knowing how to use this information. And I always thought I never had a poker face.

Anyway, getting back to being pulp...or rather not being pulp. I have a couple of friends who are in dire need of relationship makeovers (as in they should get out of the relationships in which they are currently involved), but I can't schedule an intervention. I know someone who thinks I won't be happy until everyone I know is divorced. That isn't the case at all. I am a fan of marriage, really, it's just that I can only think of about two people in my friend circle who are in viable, healthy relationships. Maybe three. Aside from that, it would be too hypocritical. Even though I am divorced, I am too deeply entangled in my X and his everyday bullshit. I'm not romanticallty interested in him; you'd do better to bet on a snowball's chance in hell than that we'd get back together but I still have to deal with him. Kids. I love 'em to the end of the planet but ugh sometimes!

See, I have one friend who is so stressed out about her guy that she landed in the ICU over it. I have another friend who is just waiting for her husband to lose job his again (and not because of the economy) before she takes a powder. I can't make either them cut and run before real tragedy strikes. I can't sit here and say, "See? It's so much better without him!" Even though it is.

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When we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone. - George O'Neil

You are searching for the magic key that will unlock the door to the source of power; and yet you have the key in your own hands, and you may use it the moment you learn to control your thoughts. - Napoleon Hill

If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti

Any day that begins by cleaning the living room with a leaf blower cannot be entirely bad. It's possible to clean your living room with a leaf blower when you have removed every scrap of carpet and all but one piece of furniture. I know this because that's what I did. The other day I decided I had enough of my carpet. Whether or not my X is speaking to me for the time being, whether or not I ever get replacement flooring, the carpet had to go. You shouldn't walk into any room in your house and actively hate it. I was actively hating the carpet every time I set foot on it, which was a LOT. That's a yucky way to feel in your own house.

So, I decided on Wednesday that I would get rid of the carpet and paint the floor. If I only knew how, I would install a drain in the center of the floor, now that's my kind of cleaning. After the kids went to bed on Wednesday night, I got out the industrial strength X-acto knife and started cutting. It was liberating...until the boys popped out of their room for a glass of water, then I felt a little like I'd been caught wrapping presents on Christmas Eve.

The looks on their faces were priceless; I could tell they thought I had come completely unhinged. They both had this cautious, wide-eyed stare and asked, "Uh, Mom? What are you doing?"
"Taking out the carpet," I said cheerfully.
"Uh, why?"
"Because it's filthy and disgusting and I don't want it in the house anymore." Apparently I was far too chipper about this.
"Uh, okay...?" [backing away] "'night." Yep, I wonder how they'll look back on this when they grow up. Like, "Remember that time Mom ripped out the carpet for no reason and she was all like, 'tee hee, whatever'? That was fucking nuts." Events like this are exactly why god invented therapy.

Anyway, the whole de-carpeting process would have taken less than an hour if I hadn't stopped to pay attention to Glee and Top Chef. Even so, I was done in less than two. And it was way more disgusting than I'd anticipated. The amount of grime a carpet can accumulate over 15 years, even with occasional steam cleaning is really astounding....astoundingly gross. I am so glad I took it out and can't believe I waited so long to do it. I would much rather have no floor at all than a foul one I couldn't stand to be around. So, carpet gone, padding gone, I'd moved furniture into the dining room temporarily and moved it back for the night just so the kids would wake up with a smidge of consistency the next morning.

After they went to school and my out-of-the-house business was done I came back and shoved the furniture BACK into the dining room. I went around prying up tacking strips with a crowbar...awesome. Scraped errant padding fuzz off random glue squiggles while talking on the phone. Kids came home; kids went out to play...I even managed to make steak and baked potatoes for dinner. I felt practically heroic.

Today after necessary facebook time and the exact amount of coffee to be wildly dangerous I got out the leafblower. I had designs on blowing all the dust out the back door but settled on concentrating it in a corner. The shop vac sealed it's fate. Triumph! Mixed the degreaser and got down to business scrubbing the floor. About midway through I had a revelation, "Hey, this is men's work. Men don't get on their hands and knees and scrub ANYTHING. If I were a guy, what would I do?" So, I poured the degreaser on the floor, let it sit for a few minutes and went back with a light scritch-scritch scrub...and Voila! The second half of the room was done in half the time as the first. Duh. And fuck Martha Stewart by the way...she makes everything retardedly difficult. I bet if I did it Martha's way, I STILL be doing it...with a soft bristled toothbrush and sanity nowhere in sight. She's probably getting kickbacks from all the Prozac prescriptions she's inspired over the years.

Alright, I realized before the kids got home from school that I had to make some kind of place for them to sit. I fashioned the furniture in the dining room into a sort of den-ish arrangement and went to push the TV cabinet in there too. I was all psyched because it was on casters and rolled really easily now. Until it hit a cord. Which caused the cabinet to stop moving of course but thanks to the laws of physics, the TV, the gargantuan, pre-millenium TV kept moving forward. Out of the cabinet. Top first onto the bare concrete floor. "Oh!" I cried out. "Nononononononono!" I said as I rushed to survey the damage. Frantically disconnecting cables, shaking like crazy, "No. No. No. No. No. Please no. Please," was all I could say. I tried to revive it, but it's official. It's dead.

Had to take a minute to deal with that and get my head back on straight. Called my sister. She started throwing plans at me. "Don't worry, the boys don't need to watch that much TV anyway. You can watch your shows online. Dad has that extra TV, you can use that. What about the other TV in the playroom?" I thought, "I know, I just need a second to process what the fuck just happened here. No, it's not the end of the world. No, I'm not going to cry it's just that I was all motivated and ready to go and do the next thing and I can't DO that now because I have to do THIS. Yes, thank you for your encouragement. Yes, I'll move it with a skateboard; good idea. Okay, let me go figure this out."

So, I did. And then somehow randomly managed to spill orange juice all over myself and the kitchen floor. And then my youngest came in crying because he'd gotten punched in the face by a neighbor kid who isn't my favorite. When he was taken care of I continued with my floor project rinsing off the degreaser and thinking, "You know what Today? Do your worst. I am not giving up on this." I thought I must be paying back some kind of karmic debt because I have officially exceeded my WTF quota for the day...the year...the decade. Seriously, if you only knew.

And then I remembered how I started the day. Woke up on time, got the kids on the bus without major incident, had enough coffee to be nuclear and cleaned the room with a leaf blower. Awesome. So it wasn't a totally bad day after all. If Tomorrow wants to hassle with me, Tomorrow better bring his lunch.