Yes, if you read my last post (…a fool for a builder…), you know now that I was my own builder. You know how they say that a man who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for an attorney? Well, it’s more than a little relevant here.

Like so many things, it’s my mom’s fault. See, my mom raised me to believe I could do anything. I don’t mean that she threw around generic platitudes like you can do anything you want to do if you just set your mind to it. No, my mother actually believed that I could do anything. And while it didn’t instill in me any great sense of confidence, or prevent me from becoming completely neurotic about my various ineptitudes, it did predispose me to go ahead and try despite my obvious shortcomings. My mother’s encouragement set me up for more than one collossal failure. And I am still learning what an incredible gift that is.

So of course, when I found out that there was a way to be my own general contractor and build my own house–well naturally I decided I’d give it a go. I mean, if such a thing were possible—if in fact other people managed it, then certainly I could, too.

Nevermind the fact that I had no experience whatsoever. I mean, I painted a room once. No–twice. I’d painted two rooms. Okay, I didn’t actually paint the second one–but I did stencil little fish on the wall. And…that’s pretty much it. But that didn’t matter–there was this company, and they gave you this binder with everything you needed to know to do the job. How hard could it be?

Before you answer that, let me set the scene: at that time, I had three children–ages 8, 4, and a nursing newborn.  I was homeschooling the oldest in a 30-year old, 600 square foot 2nd floor apartment with a non-working oven and only one functioning stove burner that consistently set off the smoke alarm. And I had a loaner baby at the time—a 2 year old that I babysat full time, whose mother decided it was time to start potty training. Oh, joy.

Yeah, in hindsight I can see the obvious insanity here, too. But at the time it seemed like a really great idea. I had this vision of myself standing at the jobsite, wearing a pink construction helmet, being totally in control of building process. I’d hire the subcontractors, oversee the bricks & sticks (my house has no brick; I’ve just always liked the way that sounds), and get my fingers meshed in every aspect of the process—every last duct, joist, and faucet.

Now, back when we got married almost 20 years ago, I promised The Hubby that I would never let him get bored. Of all the well-intentioned promises I have reneged on in the past 2 decades, that one has remained untarnished…much to his dismay. The Hubby lives in justified fear of five little words: “Honey, I have an idea.” That simple phrase from my lips will blanch that man’s face. Which is an amazing sight, given the fact that he’s hispanic and is normally a nice, caramel color.

So when I announced my newest “great idea,” The Hubby ignored it, hoping it would go away. It only made sense, I argued. After all, he had certain requirements in mind for our new house–none of which we could afford…unless I acted as the general contractor, effectively eliminating the costs associated to the middleman. Not to mention the fact that nobody would be as ruthless as me when it came to bargain shopping for fixtures. This wasn’t just some harebrained scheme, it was my way of giving him the house he wanted.

He finally sensed that I wasn’t taking my teeth out of his leg on this one. “Okay, but I have a full time job,” he told me. “I am not building this house. If you do this, you’re on your own–I can’t help you.” Yes, of course, I understood completely. “I’m not kidding,” he assured me. “This is your job, leave me out of it.”

Pretty much everything after the word “Okay” was blah-blah-blah at the time.  Energized by the challenge ahead, I set to lining up subcontractors. And everything went great…until right before they poured the slab.

Now, if you’re not familiar with the building process, let me just say that “right before they pour the slab” is pretty much right at the beginning.

Here’s the set-up: I am terrified of tornadoes. This is not an irrational fear in the state of Texas. Pretty much from March through October you can count on any precipitation event being accompanied by at least a tornado watch, and often by an actual tornado warning. And most people who’ve lived in Texas very long at all have had at least one near miss, in which a tornado has touched down within a few miles of where they were or where they should have been but, due to divine intervention, were not at the time. I actually encountered an actual tornado as I was driving through West Texas about 10 years ago. Funny thing about West Texas, if I were going to build a road straight through a region fondly referred to as Tornado Alley, I might put some bridges or some ditches somewhere along that road. If you are ever caught in an actual tornado in Tornado Alley, all that advice the weatherman drilled into your head about lay-down-in-a-ditch will be pretty useless….

Where was I? Tornadoes….oh, now I remember. So, being that I have actually spent several hours laying in a bathtub with a toddler during a tornado warning, I decided I needed a tornado shelter. And I didn’t want one of those outside jobs, where you have to actually leave your house carrying a 4 year old at midnight in a raging storm, only to have the storm pass benignly overhead. No siree, my shelter was going to be fully accessible from inside my house, so that at the first sign of inclement whether I could toss all of the kids down the hole to wait it out. I found a contractor and had the plans drawn to sink a prefab unit under the master bedroom closet. Perfect. Except that the guy who came and dug the hole and dropped the prefab unit into the dirt put it in the wrong danged place–a fact that wasn’t discovered until after the piers had been dug and the rebar run, and just before the slab was poured.

Hey, I went into this realizing that it wouldn’t be a cakewalk. I assessed the situation, and after deciding that tearing up all the rebar and re-drilling the piers wasn’t an option, we just kind of redesigned the master closet and the kitchen around the new position. No problem.

Except that the new position ate into my kitchen, obliterating half a wall of planned storage. I coped. I moved on. (I also never dealt with the storage problem. To this day, it’s just a wall).

More little things arose here and there, but I dealt with them. Every day I dragged my kids (3 of my own, 1 borrowed-baby; Mason hadn’t been born yet. Yet being the operative word…) to the jobsite to check on the subs. Funny, you’d think I was the first general contractor to ever ask a trim carpenter if he could stick around until she was finished nursing the baby….

But like I said, I dealt with the minor crises as they arose. And then a not-so-minor crisis arose. As luck would have it, from the time “they” (the people with the magic binder) worked up my budget to the time we were actually hiring subs, gas prices had shot up, along with the price of virtually every necessary building supply and service. So somewhere around the time I started soliciting bids for the interior work, I realized there wasn’t going to be enough money to finish the house, at least not at the rates the subs were quoting me.

I had only one option: I had to find some cheaper subcontractors.

Two cheaper subcontractors, to be exact. One of them had really cute knees. And the other never did get that pink construction helmet….

…to be continued….

I don’t do Mondays.

Being a stay-at-home mom, Monday holds no special meaning for me. It differs little from its other weekly compatriots.

I know it holds some significance to a lot of other people. For many, it’s the day they go back to work or school. For most stay at home moms, the kids are out of the house, and life takes a daily break from insanity. Not so for us homeschooling moms. And the fact that I also have 2 in school means I still have to wake up early and make the 45 minute round trip drive to drop them off before coming home and starting school & housework with the older two.

No, I choose not to celebrate Monday. In fact, I choose not to even recognize it. I realize millions of people around the world do recognize Monday, as evidenced by countless calendars and tv guides. And you’re free to recognize it and celebrate it as you see fit–as long as your recognizing and celebrating doesn’t infringe on my right to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Please don’t wish me a Happy Monday. Don’t post Mondayisms on your Facebook status. And those song references–Manic Monday; Monday, Monday; Come Monday—do you have any idea how offensive it is for someone who doesn’t practice Monday to listen to your Monday songs?

Local Restaurants advertising “Monday specials?” Extremely offensive. Oh, I have no problem enjoying the specials, I just don’t want to have to acknowledge Monday to do it.

So what if the celebration of Monday dates back centuries–who cares? Besides, did you know the origins of the names of all the days of the week–including Monday—come from the planets and some Norse gods? Yep, they have pagan roots. Bet that puts a damper on things.

I don’t care that Monday will come whether I celebrate it or not, and that you simjply wish to express your hopes that the day be a pleasant one for me. In fact, I propose we rename the whole thing “First Weekday,” or maybe “Weekday One.” Then those of us who don’t embrace all the day stands for won’t feel left out of your little Monday club.

Tomorrow, I’m drafting a letter to the ACLU, asking them to consider lobbying to remove the word “Monday” from the English vernacular. I figure they’ll be all over it….

Happy Monday, Happy Chanuka, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

The morning of the reunion, we sat down to what we came to refer to as Bacon-Day-#3. The whole family crowded around the table, elbow to elbow, laughing and telling stories. My brother-in-law had purchased some barbacoa to contribute to the rise of our cholesterol. Now, to us gringos, “barbacoa” seems self-explanatory. Say it out loud…go on, I’ll wait…. Barbecue, right? Warning: if you like a healthy dose of denial along with your barbacoa, skip ahead to the next paragraph. Sure, barbacoa resembles what a Texan would call BBQ, except for the absence of sauce, in that it is basically a mound of shredded meat. What makes it NOT BBQ is it’s source. It is also called “cabeza.” Spanish 101 coming back to you? Yep, it’s cow head. Or more appropriately, cow face. Cheeks and tongue. Thought you should know that before the next time you order a barbacoa taco.

Now, my brother-in-law (we’re gonna call him BIL for short, because hyphens are hard for me to hit in the dark) is known for his tendency to be a bit…different. My children introduce him to their friends by saying “This is my Uncle Salty. He eats cow eyeballs.” Oh, yes he does. And did. He ordered enough to share. In an exchange that sounded frighteningly like the stoner in an after-school-special enticing the straight kid to just-say-yes (come on, you’ll like it…just try it), the BIL waved the container under The Hubby’s nose. It was at this point that I announced that I wasn’t sure how many toothbrushings would have to take place between eye-ball-eating and wife-kissing, but that it was probably more than twenty.

After filling myself with bacon (because while I will eat things WITH faces, I will not eat an actual face), it was time to get dressed for the reunion. I tried on the same three pairs of jeans nine times, each time berating myself for not starting that diet a few months sooner. I dressed the kids, and we headed out.

The first thing I noticed about the banquet hall was the door handles. Levers. Remember that scene in Jurassic Park, the one where Laura Dern says “Unless they figure out how to open doors,” and next thing you see is a scaly green dino-claw plying the door handle? Well, levers are about as effective at keeping Mason contained as they were the velociraptors. This did not bode well.

Our basic strategy when out and about with Mason is to keep him in his stroller for as long as possible. This lasted through a few introductions, a snack, and a private guitar concert of Beatles’ tunes courtesy of cousin Dave. Then with a banshee-worthy wail, Mason announced that the chaos would now begin. Reluctantly, I freed the velociraptor–I mean, Mason.

What happened next is kind of a blur. There was a lot of running, conversations broken mid-sentence by me saying “Oops–gotta run,” and more running.

Somewhere in the chaos, Ramie realized that she occupied an undesirable void: all the English-speaking kids were a lot older than she was. “That’s okay,” I encouraged her as I ran after Mason. “Your Tia Sandra and I don’t speak the same language, and we’re still good friends.” “But Mom, you’re old.” Thanks, Sweetie….

Now, I really did feel sorry for Ramie. The older kids were all doing their own thing, and the younger kids were truly quite a bit younger. This was no fun for her. She wanted to go home. I know this because she said “This is no fun for me. I want to go home.” And she said it over. And over. And….

So here’s the mental picture: I’m chasing Mason in 5″ heels (me, not him) calling back versions of “soon, honey” over my shoulder to the 5-year old who by now has decided the best strategy is to tackle me by wrapping her body around my legs. By about the hundredth time she whines “When are we leaving?” I give up on saying “soon,” and instead try “Never. It’s all been an evil plot. This is your new home. Have a nice day.” Mason once again crawls out from under that “cognitively disabled” label and takes advantage of my momentary lack of attention to duck into a gap in the crowd and head for the door. Once I discover his escape, I’m off like a geriatric Charlie’s Angel in my 5″ heels, catching up with him just outside the building.

Did I mention that there was no alcohol served at this function?

Ramie finally joins Ethan, Riley, and two cousins outside where Ethan has found an enormous wolf spider and has adopted it as a pet. He has also–for some reason known only to him–managed to hand-tease his moppy hair into an enormous Don King lookin’ nightmare, and is scaring one of the little cousins through the front window. So for now the whining has stopped, but the chasing continues. We do laps around the outside of the building in the July Rio Grande Valley humidity. I keep telling myself that it’s cosmic punishment for consuming bacon three days in a row. Inside they are taking pictures, and everyone notices that we’re gone, but nobody comes to find us. So we keep walking.

Finally, I manage to wrangle Mason back into the A/C so I can grab a bottle of water. The mariachi band has arrived, and Mason is having a blast dancing. I do have to rush after him once to stop him from pulling a concho off a musician’s costume, and afterward he goes back to lifting up his shirt to show his belly while he dances (Mason, not the mariachi).

It’s a good kind of tired when the music stops and the goodbyes start. The Hubby has reconnected with family members he hasn’t seen in thirty years, my kids have spent quality time with the cousins they only see once a year, and I’ve gotten a decent cardio workout. Besides, tomorrow is our “free day”–nothing on the schedule. We can sleep in, celebrate Bacon Day #4, and maybe all my Mason Chasin’ has earned me a little time to head to Starbucks by myself.

What’s that honey? Everyone had so much fun that we’re doing this again tomorrow?

Next up: The added stress of knick-knacks, broken promises, and I’m fairly sure that’s justifiable cause for calling time-out….

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted in a while. If you haven’t, please don’t tell me–I’m kinda fragile that way. Let’s just both pretend that you missed me, and everything will be fine.

I have just arrived back from our annual 8-day mega-pilgrimage to the Rio Grande Valley, only this year our 8-day pilgrimage was actually a 10-day pilgrimage due to a family reunion that required us to be safely landed and unloaded at my in-laws by Friday. And technically I haven’t just arrived back; we got back three days ago, but it took me a while to unpack my mind. Same with my suitcase.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the mega-pilgrimage. Every year (hence the ‘annual’ part) we pack the Suburban up to the roof with four kids, twice as many outfits as we’ll wear, half as many DVDs as the kids will require, and two-weeks worth of food to satisfy the various food-issues, and set out on a trip that used to take us 10 hours back before we had kids, but which now takes about 4 hours longer and must be broken into two days of pure mind-clawing torture thanks to the efforts of the Soundtrack, the Narrator, and Ferris Beuler’s Teacher.

You’ve already met the Soundtrack and the Narrator (…with Liberty and Justice for All). Ferris Beuler’s Teacher (FBT) is a 30-pound public address system whose greatest fondness lies in repeating names over and over. Due to sheer probability I’m the target 87% of the time. In action, it sounds something like this:

“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Mama?”
“What?”
“Mama?”
“What is it, dear?”
“Mama?”

The game usually culminates in the target yelling “WHAT DO YOU WANT CHILD?” which is immediately followed by the target being reminded that she is an adult and really needs to remain calm. Which is in turn followed by some snarling and pouting and some daggers being shot from eyes and the words “He started it.”

By the time we completed the first leg of our journey, half of the passengers of the Suburban were ready to strangle the other half, and the feeling was pretty mutual. We spilled out of the overpacked vehicle into the tranquility of my sister’s house on what used to be Lake Travis (and is now a giant sandpit), ready to infect her abode with our chaos.

Now, my hubby is not at all the superstitious sort, but he nonetheless believes there is a certain travel curse that follows me on vacation like the blue-gray smoke out of a 1972 Buick Regal’s tailpipe. According to him, anywhere I go there is bound to be drama, injury, and (of course) the requisite chaos.

Never let it be said that I would disappoint the hubby.

Within moments of entering the house, Mason made a bee-line for a huge framed print on the other side of the great room. He’s fascinated by object d’art that hang on walls, and is obsessed with the notion of freeing them from their seeming captivity. Either that or he figures it would make a pretty cool crashing sound. Seeing him reach up toward the frame, I sprinted across the room to stop him. At full speed, my left foot hit the new blue area rug, which had apparently been purchased from the Acme Cartoon Rug store. The edge my foot was planted on skidded across the floor to meet the opposite edge where my son stood on tiptoe, reaching for the frame, the expanse between the two edges rippling like oversized corrugated metal. Arms poised to the sides like a surfer on a blue shag wave, I skidded to a less-than-graceful stop, while Mason found himself landing with a ‘thud’ on his diaper. Of course, in the process I managed to pull every muscle on the left side of my body.

After my brother-in-law assured me that the frame was so securely mounted to the wall that not even Mason could dislodge it (which I highly doubt…), and after a wonderful meal of grilled chicken sandwiches and a much-needed Shiner, the brother-in-law brought out my niece’s set of stacking blocks. Titled “Attack of the 50 Foot Baby,” each cube-shaped block is made of heavy-duty laminated cardboard, open at the bottom, designed to look like part of a high-rise building with hysterical scenes of people carrying out various absurdities (like bathing cats or throwing TV sets out of windows). When stacked, they reach a combined height of about three feet. But of course the point of the game is for the 50 foot baby to knock them down–a game Mason excells at, I might add. It was funny to watch, right up until the open edge of one of the blocks caught me in the face, driving my upper lip into the edge of my front tooth with the force of…well, I can’t think of a witty comparison, but it was something with a lot of force–enough so to leave me with a busted, bloody lip.

Curse: 2, Me: 0

Obviously, the problem was that Mason had been cooped up too long–first in the car, now in the house. A walk would cure all our ills.

One doesn’t take Mason for a walk. One follows Mason and tries to keep him from eating strange plants or picking up spiders or making dirt angels. So Mason led down the excruciatingly-steep hill to the boat dock, and I followed. And then carried him back up when his little legs proved unable to make the journey. He ran down the road, I followed. Again and again. And again. It started to rain, much to Mason’s delight, and there was no convincing him to head back toward the house, so I had to carry him, writhing and wailing all the way.

I have been told more than once by self-proclaimed experts on the matter that Croc flip-flops should never, ever be worn on wet surfaces. Given the source, I figured it was more a alcohol issue than a footwear issue. My theory was dismissed the minute my foot hit the front porch.

There is a motherly instinct that will keep a child safe even at the sacrifice of the mother’s own body. As I went down, that instinct wrapped my hand around Mason’s head and twisted my body so that I took the force of the fall…directly on my already-blown-out right shoulder.

As I lay dazed on the cement, Mason uncharacteristically calmed by the commotion, I realized that the only thing worse than the pain that told me I had now pulled every muscle on the right side of my body was the fact that my sister and brother-in-law, in their infinite attention to all things that epitomize style, had a full-length glass entry door that allowed the hubby a perfect view of my performance.

In case you’re keeping score: 3-0. Not in my favor. And we’re only 6 hours into our vacation….

I wish I could tell you it ended there, that the rest of our trip passed by in blissful uneventfulness. But then, that would be someone else’s blog now, wouldn’t it?

To be continued….