I spent the morning drenching glued walls with a sponge then rubbing balls of glue onto the floor (where they remain). This is no small job; relative to the glue-happiness of the wallpaper hanger. The former owner was thorough, I'll just say that. She was thorough with the bathroom and kitchen tile glue ... thorough with the wallpaper glue. Shoveling two feet of snow was much easier. This job is cool because you can dance on a chair--who doesn't want to do that? But in no time I got sick of hearing myself disciplining from up high and across the room. And I don't get the directions for the enzyme paper-remover-accelerator I bought after attempting the job a la hot water: add contents to two gallons of hot water. "The hotter the better" the clerk told me. The contents cost me $4.99 and there's no way in hell the water will stay hot for the entire time it will take to cover the area in question. No way. I opted for many small buckets and no measuring. My logic: if hot water worked, this, in any amount, should work even better. It does. Just not as good as I'd hoped. I'm able to get lost in the work, but then come back around to find myself again, spending an awful lot of time for my own self-indulgence. Too late to turn back now. The wallpaper belonged in a doctor's office and you know it, I reassure myself. Besides, the kids started peeling it up. Blame the kids. Not like I have my Dodge to get the hell out of Dodge in. Might as well do the home improvements I've envisioned.

The living room looks great. The far walls I did tan, which contrasts nicely with the ceiling, as opposed to the light cream the owner left us with (the job was professionally done but the covered cracks have made their reappearance and the old mailbox slot from before the exterior stone veneer was put on became a hole in the wall once the kids pulled it off). My mailbox patch turned out to be only so-so. I need to slap some more joint compound on before the next coat of paint. It looks way better than the pretend mailbox of yore though. The other walls I bought the honey brown two shades darker for. I can't wait to see the room finished. Aqua details and a shaggy orange rug to go with husband's trio of blue-depth abstract artwork compose the rest of my dream. Actually, I want a really, really, really squooshy dark blue velor couch. I don't know if anyone even makes what I want. Don't you hate when that happens?

A part of me wants to move far away from my parents. I don't know what's keeping me here to subject myself to their dysfunction. I mean, when that's all they give you it's difficult to see them any other way. And then I have to battle seeing myself as a product of them too. It's sad. I told my mom Aaron could transfer to LA. She told my sister she'd probably have to go with me. Wha? NEVER! We were looking at our city on Google Earth recently and my husband had no idea my dad worked so close to our house; unbelievably close for not seeing my kids since Christmas. With him it's like your hungry and have only a bunch of walnuts but no nutcracker. You'd probably end up eating some shell. Do I have problems because of him? I don't know. Nothing adding some real distance between us can't help at least a little. My kids already think he lives far away. Why else would he stay away? He's totally invited and he knows it. My sister invites him over all the time, and she's a fantastic cook with much incentive to see and join for dinner. What does he do? Secretly bitch to me about the traffic in her neighborhood. He said he doesn't like going there because of all the traffic, so he stays away. I wonder what the reason for not coming to my house is. I don't care if you hate me, there's absolutely no excuse for not seeing your grandchildren. And everyone gets along fine when together. So why the distance? I don't know. He's kind of a sop. 'Mr. Negativity,' I think my mom used to call him.... The family was riding down historic Euclid Avenue on the way from my grandparent's church to the cemetery last winter for my Papa's funeral. I had just read the eulogy in church ... my relatives telling me they enjoyed it ... silence and feeling ... laughter from us grandchildren and our stories of Papa ... more quiet thoughtfulness, some tears ... my dad pointing out how horrible the graffiti in the city was ... no one answering him. Gah! That's him.

Sorry. My depression visits him. I'm sad when I think I'm doing all this work in my house, and I like the changes I've made, when I am not happy at all in Cleveland. I think winter has something to do with it. Winter and no car. I wish it were easy to plop my house on a truck and down in a different state. I'd sacrifice my basement of Buddhas for it I would.