The Other Week at Kristen the Gently Mad

I wrote most of this post about two weeks ago.

Wednesday I began thinking about going and doing some cleaning. The house was (and is) a mess! Things in chaos because of the Never-Ending Painting Project, and because there's always uncouth children running around. The house tends to look like a bunch of miniature tornadoes just came through. :P (And we had three little boys--Douglas, Charles, and Westley--and their mom and baby sister over on Tuesday. That's six little boys total. My, my, my.) Cleaning can be morose at times, mainly because these miniature tornadoes have never-ending energy. Why can't the house always be immaculately clean? All you need to do is vacuum now and again, dust now and again, and wash the window curtains occasionally. Except, for that to happen I'd have to live alone. That'd bore me to the point of insanity. And I'd miss my family. So, I guess I'd better just keep dealing with the little midgets and their habit of getting into things and trouble.
Well, I, to tell the honest truth, did not actually clean much on that day. I was unmotivated and felt icky so, though I thought about it, I didn't do it. I lay, switching from the couch to the bed and back again, around and read a book. I read Death on the Nile. A murder mystery, yes, the poor woman got shot through the head. Who did it?Her husband! He ditched his girlfriend, married a millionaire, killed the millionaire, inherited her money, and then got back together with his girlfriend. That was the plan that the two put together. They executed the killing part but thanks to Hercule Poirot they didn't get further (though they tried to keep themselves in the clean by killing two more people) he found them out. And, to end the story in a extra dramatic way, the girl, when her and her boyfriend were about to be handed over to the police, shot her boyfriend first and then herself. Darling, isn't it?
I guess I'm not too annoyed with Poirot for letting her have the gun but it was not right that he should have let the jewelry thief get away. You don't say, "Well, if you put back this one jewel we'll forget the rest, you can go marry the girl." Most annoying and just wrong.
There was a very amusing proposal scene, actually. The smart girl refused the guy.

As you know, our house is really old. It's was built in the Civil War days. It's seen many owners and several other things. It's one of the tourist sights in Myville. When they have/had the trolley rides during the Watertower Fest one of the stops is our house. Cool, eh?
Well, in the 1800's the house was a farm house with a lot of land. I can't remember what all the farmer had, atleast some horses and cows. At this time the house was very fancy and beautiful, three stories, also a turret at one end. (It had the fancy gingerbread stuff for awhile but then that was ditched when they replaced the siding and didn't want to do the gingerbreading with it because that would be too expensive. :( )
A few owners later it came in possession of a man who was just a little off. A crazy, very crazy guy. He lived in the house in the '20s or so. When this guy lived in the house there was a fire that distroyed the third floor and parts of the second. (A sad loss, I'm sure.) I don't think that anyone really knows how the fire started but it's rumored that it started when the owner was in the kitchen trying to blowtorch the feathers off a chicken. Everyone didn't think much of that because they thought it was just the kind of thing that owner would do. I'm not sure if I believe it tale of not. But I will say that there isn't a whole lot of original woodworking in the kitchen. :P
The house was fixed up by a guy named Brown (so sometimes the house is called the Brown House), he turned it into a solar house. Brown was also very cheap and I think a little lazy. He used cheap, leftover material and did things the stingy way. A owner or two later was a guy with green, very green thumbs. He was a Gardner through and through, also a proactive tree planter and semi-proactive in the art of growing bushes, shrubs, and flowers. The owner after that lived here for four years and did not now the lawn even once.
And now, here's us. We're not gardners (just imagine the current dsorganization of the yard!) but we do mow the lawn and we don't know that much about fixing someone's cruddy home repairs. But currently we're trying to paint this house which can be really annoying, even more annoying when you don't like painting and don't know much about it. And when the people who know the most are unmotivated, busy, or too "tired." What also makes it annoying is that the current/previous paint is poorly done and bad quality. So, we painted the kitchen minus the final coat and now, a few weeks later some of the paint is falling and peeling off. Painted the middle room ceiling and well Heather was still working on it large pieces of paint started falling and there's always loads of mudding to do. Heather's workin' hard on getting it done. She's a hardworker. :) If you like this kind of thing...
Kitchen--was red wallpaper with a yellow-y ceiling but now a white ceiling, very pale yellow-white walls with some green.
Middle room--was a musty yellow color but is now white ceiling'd, sage green walls, and a little more dark green (same as the kitchen). The "bricks" behind the woodstove are glazy orangish beige. That color is tentative. Not sure if it works yet.
Front hall/stairs/top of stairs--was off-white but now mostlyyellow. Paint job is in progress. I'm not sure if I like the colour. ;)

Well, Thursday we had some friends over who know the fine art of house repair. After a few hours of workin' on it they called it a day and we all went out and played volleyball. These friends are a family of six. Three boys (16, 15, and 12ish) and a girl who is 8. They live a few blocks away and we've struck up a friendship since theymoved in a month or two ago. (We've known them for longer than that, just not very well.) They come over regularly, sometimes just parts of the family and sometimes all of them. The youngest likes to play with Amalie and the boys like playing volleyball with us. We all are terrible at. There's a few volleys and grand moments, though. :D My goal in life in terms of volleyball is to continually hit the ball in a good way if it's coming into my area and don't go for it at all if it's going to someone else. After that I will work on my other amazing skillz that will someday be birthed. You just can't rush this kind of thing,
people.

Kelsey and I went to a birthday party on Friday. That would make my list of birthday parties for non-family members that I've attended up to two. (The other one was when I was 7-9. I got invited to the birthday party of a kid from my Sunday School class. His name was Peter. I felt so special at the time--being invited to someone's party! But now I look back and think that I just got invited because I was, yes, in his Sunday School class. He had girlgermphobia and would never have invited a girl because he actually wanted her to be there. :P ) A-N-Y-W-A-Y.
Well, our friend was turning the ripe old age of nineteen. What's up with that? All my friends are getting so old--wait, I'm getting old too! How can it be?
It wasn't a big party. During the course of the day there were about 15-20 guests besides me and Kelsey. I knew or had met several of them and knew one or two others by sight. (Like Creed and Grace and her brother, I knew them by name and sight but never actually met them. And I knew the Birthday Boy's aunt, three of his cousins, and his friend, Joelle. Everyone else I was introduced to. "I'd like you to meet my friends...," isn't it nice to know that someone thinks of you as a friend?)
We played Taboo first, it's not my favorite game but it was fun. :) The team who had the loosing score for most of the game over came that in the last few minutes and got a higher score than the team who had the winning score for most of the game. However, my team won by two points. Sweetness. :)
The boys went out and played Ultimate Frisbee and the girls hung out for awhile. We played a few rounds of Mafia. I was the Mafia once and didn't last long (as always!) but I was sheriff twice and the first time I guessed who the Mafia was on the second try and the second time I got it on the first! Yay! Sherrif is a tense part to play, especially when you know who the Mafia is. You have to try and convince the other Innocents that they are it but you have to do it without making yourself suspected and without getting killed. Either way you have lost your chance to protect the other Innocents which is your job as sheriff!
My friends Benjamin and his brother are really good at playing doctor! :P They would save almost everyone! One game we'd slept about four times without having anyone die -- but wasn't actually all that good of thing because we had nothing to work off of in terms of who did it.
I bet you're never been saved by Spiderman after having been fatally stabbed.

It's funny because Andy has suddenly discovered his voice. He's always been so quiet and then, last Thursday, he discovered his voice and talked up a storm! I came home going, "Woah! I've never heard Andy say so much in one sitting!" :P It's kind of funny and a little odd. Well, anyone, we played a word game called Strets and Andy aced it! He would come up with words so fast! I improved at that game pretty quickly. The first round we played I got 9 cards (you don't want cards) and it went down from there. The last game we played I got 7 cards--I won! :D My last word was "quagmire." I rock. :P

We ended the night sitting around a campfire, roasting marshmellows, and chit-chatting. The Birthday Boy and Andy attempted chubby bunnies. Andy aced. He stuffed eleven in his cheeks alone (after that he had to put them on his tongue, so he couldn't talk, and therefore they didn't count :( ) Birthday Dude only stuffed 7 or 8 in. Faiiil.

So, yes, that was a good week. Hopefully another post soon. I'll try and get back into the grove again. :)