snapped

It had to happen.  I finally snapped.

It all began a couple days ago when I was mopping the bathroom floors.  I was in the master bath and it looked like a smear of dirt on the floor that just wouldn't come up.  That is when I realized it was a water stain... in our bathroom... from water damage under the floor.  Ugh.  JT ripped up the floor and began working on it (it is half way finished right now as he took a break to go play football :) and after a few runs to Home Depot I am hoping to have it done by tonight.  (mostly so that I don't have to walk down the hall when I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night like an old lady or pregnant woman- which I am neither - I just pee like one)

There I was- in Home Depot, with three grouchy kids in one of the giant wobbly orange shopping cart cars that I crash into every turn, when I saw the paint aisle.  I couldn't resist.  I started looking at all the colors and remembered the last house we lived in.  (my parents' house- we house sat for them while they were on a mission for the church in Washington D.C.) 

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(those are the wavy lines to indicate the going back into my memory sequence that is about to follow- please tell me you have seen those on an old T.V. show and know what the heck I am trying to describe)
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My parents had just pulled out of the drive way to head out on their mission.  JT and I had been married a year and just found out that I was pregnant.  We were thrilled to have a house of our "own" and immediately headed to Home Depot to start picking out paint.  We started with a bright turquoise wall behind the fire place in the Living Room.  And I was hooked.  I spent hours- with a giant tummy-  painting Riley's nursery pink with an assortment of brown, pink and white polka dots covering the walls.  It was my favorite place to rock my little girl to sleep.  The kitchen was a bright lime green.  OK, maybe too bright, but who can't smile in the Seattle gloom when you are baking in a lime green kitchen?  We laid down new floors, knocked out old pantries and did mini-overhauls on the bathrooms.  I fell in love with Home Depot and the time with JT molding that house into our own. But eventually my parents' mission ended and we had to give them back their house. (I have to add that my parents have always given us freedom to paint and repaint our own bedrooms and I loved the creative freedom- so they weren't too shocked to see a whole new interior in their house)  With their return came our opportunity to move out :)

We found our house and I felt at home the minute I drove up with my hansom real estate agent. (JT of course)  When we bought the house in 2008 we had every intention of living it in for about a year and then renting it out while we headed off to P.A. school.  We had no expectation of going to UW since it required way more hours of on the job experience than any other PA program and we didn't want to wait the extra years of working for JT to get in. (*laughing at the irony of how it all worked out*)  Maybe we would even make a little extra cash from the renters while we were in school... (*laughing at how the market tanked and dragged those dreams down with it*)
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(end dream sequence)



This time it was different when we settled in.  No paint brushes or hammers.  No remodeling or projects.  The house was fine- it was just going to be a rental eventually anyways.  Why spend the money (that we didn't have) on paint when I would probably have to repaint it for the renters? (after all, they might not love the idea of a purple loft or a hot pink polka dots)  So we left it.

And left it.

And left it.

As I drove away from Home Depot today with a car full of vinyl flooring for my master bath and a can of turquoise spray paint for me I felt myself starting to snap.  I was buying flooring for a rental.  For someone else's house.   I was torn between a more expensive floor for me- and a less expensive one for a rental house (this is how every decision has felt in this home for 3 years).  And then I walked in to the "rental house" that I own.  The white walls were glaring, they screamed rental home.  But who wants to paint a house they will only live in for a year??  The walls up stairs are bare and lifeless. Because who wants to fill in the nail holes from things I hammered onto the wall?  And who has the money to buy decorations for a 2000 square foot house that probably won't fit in our future tiny apartment in campus housing?    Suddenly I realized I have spent 3 and half years with boxes in my garage- never really unpacking, never really moving in, always waiting for that letter of acceptance telling me it was time to move.  I have told myself- "someday you can worry about curtains in your bedroom"  or "someday you can paint the walls whatever color you like" or "don't settle in- you will just be moving".

I am so tired of living in a rental- that I own. 

I am so tired of living in a white house when I am a hot pink and turquoise kind of girl!

I am so tired of being frugal and not having $50 for something as "frivolous" as paint or new curtains. (that we can't take to our next apartment)

I am tired of being patient or waiting for my someday to come.

I have finally snapped.

I am angry that I didn't know then that I would be hear for 4 years!  That I didn't know that I would have plenty of time to paint my house, to sew my curtains, to live in my home!

So- I am grabbing my can of spray paint and a hammer and I am going to make some changes.  Even if I only have 3 months to look at them before I move.  Even though I will have to turn around and fill those holes in.  Even though this is practically someone else's house. 

It is time for some color.