I can't stop humming the Space Odyssey theme music

Ladies and Gentleladies - The moment you've all been waiting for....dummmmmmmmm, dummmmmmmm, dummmmmmm..........DUM DUM!!!!!! (2001: Space Odyssey trumpets; look it up; watch the movie)

I am about to reveal to you, loyal constituents, my new and improved hallway bathroom. This unveiling event has been 7 long years in the making.

tangent - can I say it's been 7 years in the making since we've had the house for 7 years, or should I say it's been 4 months in the making because we started remodeling in April?

This has been 7 LONG years in the making. 7 years of tinkeling/tinkling/tinkleing in a toilet, surrounded by white walls that had only been primed, brown linoleum, a chipped toilet bowl, and a sink that, had a 6 year old put all of her weight on it just one more time, would have ripped out of it's anchor in wall. For all of you who never had the pleasure of tinkeling/tinkling/tinkleing in my hallway toilet, I have a lovely before picture to show you. Now, for some reason, I wasn't smart enough to take a recent before picture. I do, however, have a picture taken with our old camera from 7 years ago.

Please note the fact that for years, our shower curtain was a skin graph thin piece of plastic found at the 99 cent store and the color scheme was purple and blue. It would have been like putting lipstick on a pig, so I happily left the bathroom looking trashy. Sanitized, but trashy.

This was the bathroom our little family used for 6 years. Our master bath was torn apart in December of 2001, and was just completed in December of 2007. You may think that for those 6 years, Clint worked on the master bath diligently every night after he got home from work. You're wrong. It sat, closed off to the world, in it's gutted, motionless state, until Clint had a few weeks off during Christmas time of last year to devote to it. It's completed now, and I'll get pics of that up in the future.

Remodeling the hall bathroom was a long and arduous task that required many skills from both Clint and myself. I had the unenviable task of delegating, while Clint got off easy by just doing what I told him to do. I told Clint to install a new sink drain, frame, bath tub, shower walls, drywall, toilet ring, toilet bowl, plumbing fixtures, tile, baseboards, wainscoting, sink, medicine cabinet, crown molding, chair rail, door, door casing, oh, the list goes on and on. I'm exhausted just by the memory of the work I had to delegate. It was hard to keep him on track. I found him once sleeping on the job. Can you believe I had to press pause on my remote and walk all the way in there to wake him up and tell him he won't be receiving any dinner until the walls are installed?

After I withheld dinner and other unmentionable services, he seemed to kick it up a notch. The bathroom took about 2 months to complete. This last month, I've been doing my finishing touches. I'm not a fan of buying sets i.e. a shower curtain from Target that comes with coordinating towels, bath mat, soap dish, toothbrush holder, knitted kleenex box cover, etc. It's frustrating and exciting at the same time to shop for each component separately. I love how different everything looks and yet how it all fits together. So, now that the last picture has been hung and the dust swept away, I'd like to unveil our latest endeavor.

What? You're not impressed? Wait a second, you actually thought I was going to show you the entire finished product on my blog? You're crazy!! Get your rear over here and come see it for yourself!

The Universal Picture

From the "How to Parent Asher to Adulthood So You Don't Kill Him" handbook given to me at his birth, found in paragraph 27, section 12, article 4, division 33, clause 2 , snippet 9 -

"For the purpose of capturing photographic memories, it shall hear by be mandated that one such photo must be comprised entirely of the subject's meal upon their head. In such a case that this is a possible event to depict, it is encouraged that the meal be one of a stain producing variety. The subject's meal should look to be in disarray, while the subject them self should look to be well satiated and contented with their current condition."

My Contradictory Weekend

Saturday from 11a-5p - landed in Denver and was picked up by my SIL Monica. I spent time with her kids, ate milk and cookies, passed on the opportunity to go to a water park that night since I already had plans, watched ninja warrior and old BYU football highlights (mayhaps a man had the remote?), satisfied my nephew by listening to his endless "Hey Jaylee, guess what?"s, and sat and relaxed around the house in my black flip flops.

Saturday from 5p-11p - Was dropped off by Monica at a swanky bar in downtown Denver. I spent the time with 15 other women, ate sushi and edamame, passed on the pomegranate martinis being offered to me, watched the bride-to-be open gifts of lingerie, and sat around the celebration while witnessing a party guest use the man's portion of the matching gift set of sequined g-strings as a surgical mask around her head, all the while in my black high heels.

I had a really great time indulging both sides of my dual life. Being a convert to the church, I will always have experiences in my life that maybe the average born into the church member doesn't. It was a plus that my SIL and the bride-to-be both happen live in Colorado, and so I was able to spend time with each of them and their families.

The plane ride home was not without incident. My plane landed in Las Vegas at 7p. I had a 2 1/2 hour layover (the things we'll endure to save a few dollars), so I figured I would just find my gate and stick my nose in a book. When I was leaving Denver, I was given both boarding passes for my first and second flight, so there was no need to check in when I landed in Vegas. The Vegas airport is ginormous, so I spent a good half hour going back through security and finding my gate. My cell phone battery was dead, and I wasn't wearing a watch, so I decided to sit at my gate for the remainder of the time until it boarded so I wouldn't continuously be looking up at the time. I may have tripped a few times on the way to my gate, and a few dollars may have flown out of my wallet and landed in the bill slot of a very twinkly machine, but don't worry, I caught myself from falling by grabbing onto this arm-like thing that was protruding from it's side (even the airport isn't free of slot machines). Alas, I finally found my gate, which was empty, and the flight information displayed was from the last flight that had boarded at that gate. I bought a pretzel and proceeded to sit down and read for the next two hours. As the time passed on, more people began to show up. I noticed that most of the flight was going to be comprised of a rowing team all wearing the same blue uniformed polo. They were a rowdy bunch, so I moved a few times to escape their loud conversations. What a rowing team from Phoenix was doing in Las Vegas seemed to be a double contradiction, but whatever. The time ticked on and I saw the boarding agents begin to assemble. They announced that the first class passengers could board, and I moved and sat down right next to the door so that I could be one of the first passengers on the plane. I knew my row was one of the last on the plane, and I didn't want to wait for all the passengers who brought their over sized carry-ons try to shove their bags into the overhead compartments. I was lucky and boarded 2nd. As I boarded, I noticed that the plane was very nice, with large leather seats, each with a pillow and blanket laid on it. I found my seat, sat down, and put my nose back in my book. The plane began to fill up, and a few minutes later, a lady came up to me and asked in a very annoyed voice, "What's your seat number?"
I looked at her and said, "It's 26A."
"Well, my friends and I have 26A, 26B, and 26C, so that can't be right."
I fished around in my purse, found my boarding stub, and handed it to her. She located and told an attendant that US Airways had given out the same seat number to two different people. I had my nose back in my book because I knew they would figure it out themselves, and if I had to move, who cares. At this point, everyone is pretty much in their seats, and there's some commotion towards the front of the plane that I can't hear or see. The plane quiets down and everyone watches an attendant come up to me and ask, "Honey, where are you flying to tonight?"
"Phoenix?" I answer in a small voice as if I'm questioning where I'm going.
"Well, honey, this plane is flying to Seattle."

I felt a hundred pairs of eyes turn to look at me.

"You let me get on a plane to Seattle?!" I shouted. I grabbed my bags and rushed off the plane as the hundred pairs of eyes bore a hole into my back. When I got out to the boarding agent, I showed her my boarding ticket which said gate A23, which was where I was. She told me the there was a gate change and that I better hurry because my correct plane was done boarding and the gate was on the other side of the airport. So, I ran as fast as my non-fast running legs would take me and as I approached the correct gate, the boarding agent spotted me and spoke into her walkie talkie, "She's here." I'm guessing there was a phone call made saying there was a stupid girl who got on the wrong plane, and please-o-please, could you delay the plane from taking off so that she can get on it tonight since its was the last flight out of Vegas? I sheepishly walked to the last row on the plane as a hundred pairs of eyes looked at me, questioning the circumstances as to how this lady was able to delay their plane from taking off on time. I sat down between a women flying with her 2 week old baby, who for some reason did not want to take his bottle, even though he clearly was hungry, and the guy who delayed the plane even further because he was in the bathroom throwing up his airport lounge margarita and wasn't able to take his seat during the taxi to the runway.

Maybe I should have been tipped off by the fact that a rowing team was flying to Phoenix, or that luxurious seats were available for a 50 minute flight. Yes, I should have looked at the display board, or paid more attention to the announcement that they "will now begin boarding the plane bound to Seattle." I wonder, if the flight to Seattle hadn't been full, and there was no one assigned to seat 26A, would I be typing this post from Puget Sound, eating my smoked salmon, drinking my Starbucks, while listening to Pearl Jam?

Today Emma had her first dental appointment. Understand that it's been a nagging thought for the past 117 weeks that she needs to visit the dentist. I'm not sure what kept me from making the appointment, especially since we've been paying for her to have dental insurance. Had someone actually knocked on my door on the 1st and 15th of every month and demanded cash from my wallet, I would have felt more of an urge to take advantage of the service, but my dental insurance provider has a nifty way of taking their payment straight from my paycheck. Out of site, out of mind.

Her appointment was for 2:15, which was swell because Clint's off work at 1:30. And when I say he's off at 1:30, I mean he's never off at 1:30, and it drives me crazy. Since he works in the construction industry, he follows the hours of the sun and the heat, so at the hottest time of the summer, he's at work at 5am, with a quitting time of 1:30pm. It's a fantastic schedule because, in theory, after I roll out of bed at 8am, ship Emma off to school, and get home, he's already completed half his day, and I only have 5 more hours to go until I can pawn Asher off on Clint while I curl my eyelashes and practice my moonwalk. Unfortunately, the aforementioned scenario is not my reality. Since Clint is salaried and important, he stays later. His start time may change, but he doesn't seem to take advantage of leaving earlier, which means during the summer, he ends up working longer days than in the winter. So, my moonwalk is on the back burner, and my eyelashes remain droopy. But, if Clint's assigned a commitment by me, he'll take off on time, which he had to today because I was not about to bring Asher with me. Asher would have grabbed the drill to use as a weapon against me while he stuck the suction hose up his nostrils. No, Asher was to stay at home with me while Clint took her. I had reminded Clint about this appointment last night, so when 1:50 rolled around, I expected Clint to tell me he would be turning down our street any minute. Who wants to take a guess where he still was? If you guessed work, you are correct, which right now is located on Higley and the I60. Clint had forgotten. In fairness, I had also forgotten about the appointment, but was lucky enough to have looked at the calendar while I was making plans for the weekend. Panic set in because my dentist office (and I'm sure all are like this) is sooooooo stringent with start times and they charge you $30 if you are a no show to your appointment. I called them and the lady gave me a hard time about being late. I jokingly said that the appointment shouldn't last as long as a typical adult appointment because her teeth were so little. The admin lady wasn't impressed with my reasoning, and continued to give me a hard time about being late, not having enough time for paperwork, etc. So, I told her to go ahead and e-mail me the paperwork and I would fill it out at home, and would hand it to Clint to bring with him. She chuckled and told me e-mail was a no go (when will doctors enter the digital age?) but she could fax it to me. I HATE using our fax machine. It's temperamental and grouchy, and it's an outdated method of communication. I begrudgingly told her to fax it, while I ran from this room to that room to rewire our entire phone system, dig a trench for a new phone line, climb up our telephone pole to solder some pieces together, load the fax on the dolly, and transport it to a functioning outlet (we're under construction in our house, so it's a bit unorganized). The phone rings, I press the button, and nothing comes. My panic rises a decibel, and I call again and ask for her to please, oh, please fax it again. The phone rings, I press the button, and nothing comes out again. AHHHH!!! I'm getting down to the wire, Clint's almost home, and I can't get the stupid paperwork to print. I call AGAIN and ask her to re-fax it, and while it's ringing for the 3rd time, I notice that the phone wire isn't plugged into the fax machine. With one ring to spare, I quickly snap it into place and I hear the beautiful sound of beeps and printing noises. I grab the first sheet and start filling it out as quick as possible, but I notice the printing doesn't seem to be stopping. I turn around and I see that 10 pages are in que to print. Why does her dentist need 10 pages of information? I rush lickety split to fill out the paperwork, all the while yelling at Emma in the bathroom to keep brushing her teeth (why do we brush our teeth right before we see the dentist? Like it's really going to make a difference. They still stick their torture devices into your gums and yell at you for not flossing enough). Clint comes home, Emma's on her way, and I relax while Asher's sleeping. Not more than 40 minutes goes by and Clint's pulling back up to our house. Emma comes into the house and I ask how it went. She plopped herself down onto the couch and very nonchalantly told me that she didn't want to do it today and that maybe tomorrow she'll want to do it. WHAT!! Clint tells me that she refused to put the x-ray thingamabobs in her mouth and the hygienist threw her arms up in the air after the first sign of refusal. Obviously this lady doesn't have kids. Clint had no chance at convincing Emma to give it a try after hearing that it was okay to stop. I'm considering putting Emma on dessert probation until her next successful appointment. I'm definitely changing dentists. Any recommendations?