Nov
7
So I’ve been mildly obsessed with this website that has archived the last statements of prisoners executed in Texas. What? Oh, don’t look at me like that, at least it’s not dolphin porn.
In those transcripts some people ask for forgiveness. Some people declare their innocence, right down to the bitter end (those are the most disturbing ones to read, because the possibility that they might not be lying? Yeesh). Most people do a sort of shout-out to God, like they’re hoping for a Get Out Of Hell Free card.
It got me thinking what I might possibly say if I were faced with imminent death and given the opportunity to grace the planet with one last statement. I suppose I’d tell my family I loved them, what else would there be to say? Well, other than “Does anyone have a kleenex? Because I just shit my pants.” Or “Don’t mess with Texas. SERIOUSLY.”
My favorite of all the final words in that macabre little collection, by the way, is this: “Okay I’ve been hanging around this popsicle stand way too long. Before I leave, I want to tell you all. When I die, bury me deep, lay two speakers at my feet, put some headphones on my head and rock and roll me when I’m dead.”
If you’ll pardon the lack of any sort of sensible segue from death row statements to The Remodel, I thought I’d bore the shit out of you with some photos of how it has all turned out so far, now that we’ve finally (mostly) wrapped up the other rooms.
This is our front room now, it wasn’t part of the remodel but we rearranged a bunch of stuff when we moved the TV into the new room. I can’t seem to find a good picture of how it was laid out before, but here’s one view.
We got our coffee table back out of storage, although I’m sure we’ll banish it once again when Smalltopus is at the head-bashing stage. That little blue kid’s table/chair combo came from Fred Meyer, it was cheap as hell and Riley loves it. WIN.
Here’s the dining room area now, with new IKEA bookshelf (the LINNARP model, if you’re interested) (also: LINNARP! LINNARP! Oh, it’s fun to say). That cutout into the kitchen looks sort of weird in this photo, it’s not so blatantly Testrisy in real life.
View from the kitchen into the front room.
The new living room, or family room, or den, or whatever it’s called. The room that actually has insulation and therefore isn’t freezing all winter long, that’s how I think of it. We got the sectional from Levitz; JB made that side table (he’s both handy AND profane, and that’s why I love him so).
Here’s another view from the new living room with the office entryway visible.
This is the office, which I can’t seem to photograph without making it look about three feet wide. It’s small, but not quite as small as it appears here.
One of the office windows, which looks into the background. With all its mounds of reeking dogshit lovely fall foliage.
Here’s the entire addition as viewed from the outside of the house. Not shown: the port-a-potty that is mysteriously STILL HERE.
And here’s a really crappy comparison of how the place looked when we first got it, and how it looks today. To date we have added a garage, remodeled/expanded the master bath and bedroom, added an office and a living room on the west side of the house, and remodeled/expanded the kitchen. AND NOW WE ARE DONE FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER AMEN.
We could have made do with the house as it was, but this is now a place we can easily stay in for any length of time, and believe it or not it was cheaper than buying a bigger place. We now have more storage, and we have room for both kids to have their own room while still retaining an office space. If our most recent appraisal is to be believed, the whole venture has been a success from an investment standpoint—so keep on climbing to increasingly horrifying and unrealistic medians, Seattle housing market! I hate you but I love you.
At this point, the only thing we have left to do is transform our old office into Riley’s new bedroom. So this:
. . . has to become something a little more toddler-friendly. The upside-down tables probably need to go.
But other than that, WE’RE DONE. No more contractors in the house! No more refrigerators in the front room! No more Mystery Lube! The Great Remodel Bitchfest of 2006-2007 has reached its conclusion, thank you for allowing me to complain so vigorously and annoyingly for so very very long.
Nov
6
We’ve been having some problems at Riley’s daycare lately. Nothing overly traumatic, just some ongoing things neither of us are happy about. Like the fact that he never seems to consistently be in the same classroom, the classes always seem chaotic and bursting with kids while only one or two teachers are present to try and manage everyone, and the last two days in a row he’s had a massively neglected poop-filled diaper at pickup time.
I’ve been told that the center is short staffed at the moment, and I guess I can cut them some slack for that. But our experiences over the last couple weeks are adding up to an uneasy feeling. Sometimes when I drop him off in the morning, I feel like I’m just tossing him into this completely disorganized environment where he’s left to fend for himself all day. On the one hand, I like that the kids are usually enmeshed in some sort of activity—drawing, doing crafts, being read to—but on the other, I don’t know if I can trust that he’s getting the attention he should. I settle Riley at a table with what seems like fifty other children, kiss him goodbye, and walk away. Who is left in that room to care for my child? I know those teachers are all good people, but oh, there are just so many kids now. It was different in the infant room, and the early toddler room—now it’s like he’s at a kindergarten, only he’s just two years old.
We are going to talk with the center manager and I’m hopeful I’ll get a better understanding of what’s going on: are they really understaffed and hence unusually distracted, and if so what’s the timeline for improving that situation? Are all the teachers suffering from olfactory disorders and unable to detect when a diaper has been filled with shit for hours on end? OR WHAT.
As part of the whole worrying-about-daycare thing, we’ve talked a bit about hiring a nanny. I see a LOT of upsides to going that route, downsides being the trust issue, the fact that you have to rely on one person, and the potential lack of social interaction for the kids (although I think that could be addressed). Nannies are expensive, though. But hell, so is daycare.
Even if I wanted to be a full time stay-at-home mom, I couldn’t in our current situation. Our mortgage, car payments, insurance, savings, and basic bills are too much for one salary. For the most part we have chosen a lifestyle that requires a certain income level, and my salary—reduced as it is by my part time schedule—is a necessity. Even when I subtract the costs of childcare for two kids.
It’s not just about the budget, though, there are lots of reasons I like having an office job. I don’t think I’d be happy staying at home full time. Unless I could hire a nanny to watch the kids for part of the day while I do freelance work, but I don’t have enough freelance work to make up for that lost salary. JB thinks I should try and work for Workplace from home, but at the moment there’s no way I could make that happen in a manner that’s beneficial to my office or me. Oh, and there’s the issue of Workplace moving in a couple months, potentially transforming my commute into something utterly unmanageable.
We’re experiencing some glitches in our previously-smooth system right now, and I don’t know what the long term effects are going to be. I want to do the right thing for my boy. I want to do the right thing for me. I want to do the right thing for our family as a whole. I’m just not sure what the right thing is. Or if there ever is an answer that feels completely, 100% right.
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