Scraping by in July.

Lots of random little bits today.

I want to let readers of my personal blog on Typepad, "Finding Family",know that I have cancelled my Typepad account and deleted the blog. Right now, I am blogging just here, and eventually will switch to another blog on blogger after referral that will be by invite only. Again, if you would like to be invited, please email us at tammytimisabella@yahoo.com. I have been saving all the requests.

The cancellation of the Typepad account was prompted by a big financial summit SchnauzerKing and I had this weekend. Things have been rough, and I don't mean rough in a "we won't be able to take a Caribbean cruise this year" sort of way. I mean rough in a seriously "Yikes" kind of way, largely because we spent about 50% of our take home pay on our mortgage. This is not uncommon in expensive metro areas, but it certainly makes life less carefree. In addition, as many of my close friends know, my brother has been staying with us since the beginning of June, and so that entails some extra expense. One bad thing about growing up poor is that I tend not to panic until true disaster strikes. "Financial problems" to me means public housing, food stamps, and being eligible for free school lunch. Right now, I feel lucky to have the house we have, which we love despite its challenges. I feel lucky to have a decent job and a reliable car, and to be able to eat fresh produce. So disaster has not yet struck by any means, and because of that I have been living in a bit of denial, me thinks. With the upcoming adoption trip and the added expense of raising a daughter, big time financial problems could arise if we don't have our finances under control, and we simply cannot let that happen. SK and I spent a lot of time talking about "nice to haves" vs. "necessities". And so, no more $8.95/month for Typepad.

This weekend we also decided to undertake an item on our home repair "to do" list. We painted Isabella's room a light yellow (Straw by Benjamin Moore)eons ago, and the room has warm white trim called "Swiss Coffee" (also Benjamin Moore). We are happy with this combination. The problem is because we did not scrape before we painted the trim, the paint began to peel around the door frame to her room. Just a few spots, but things have not gotten so bad that we want our daughter to start eating paint flakes. So we decided to scrape all the door frames, and some of the doors, on the second floor as close down to the bare wood as possible. We also decided to repaint the walls in the second floor hallway, getting rid of the dull light blue/gray color that is there, using a color called "French Lilac" (also Benjamin Moore). I think this will all look terrific once it is done. The bad news is that I did not realize how much work and mess all this scraping would entail. Because I have asthma, I have to wear a mask while doing it, which gets pretty damn hot. Paint chips and dust everywhere. Thank God for the shop vac. And we are nowhere near done. I also discovered that if I scrape paint for 4 or 5 hours straight, I will barely be able to lift my arms the next day (translation: I am very out of shape). It's all very depressing.

On the up side, in four or five weeks, I expect we will see our daughter's photographs, know how old she is, know where she is living. And that is everything. The only thing I've ever been completely sure of in life is that I wanted to be a mother. I am going to be a mother. How fortunate am I?