I know I'm only a week and half in on this kitchen project and I should have more stamina than this, but booooooooy am I getting tired of living in the disarray. And booooooooy am I tired, period. B gets home from work about 7:30 and then we start our big project of the night, wrapping up around 11:00, midnight, or even 1:00 and dragging our butts into bed. Then Macklin, who has a timer on his wee bladder, comes into my room at about 5:00 a.m. needing to go potty (which is a two-person task at that time of morning, and I'm the second person) and about half the time I can't get back to sleep for thinking of all I need to do. The other half of the time I get back to sleep, only to be reawakened with the alarm at 6:00 when Blaine gets up, and I go make him breakfast and lunch and then start my working day with the little tasks that don't require his strength or expertise.
So I'm simultaneously physically working all day long on things like painting (which requires me to clean up all the equipment completely when I stop, even if I've painted as little as 20-30 minutes), sanding, scrubbing surfaces to prepare them for paint, etc. And I'm juggling seven children, some of whom can help me, some of whom create more problems than they solve. And I have to stop three times a day whatever my momentum might be to make meals. And I have to try to keep a torn-apart kitchen tidy enough (!) to cook in and eat in, despite it being Project Central.
Now I have this pressure from my mortgage company. My appraisal didn't come in as high as we wanted it to, so we're going with a different loan—an FHA, which requires additional things evaluated. So the appraiser has to come back and check things like whether the furnace works, whether we have adequate water pressure, whether there are cracks in the foundation. Somehow, for some reason I'm not understanding at present, my kitchen being torn apart and in an unfinished state will affect whether or not I get this loan, despite the fact that he's already appraised the house and he's not doing a full reevaluation and there's no way the value will go up even if I've improved things in the last two weeks. If they're not going to give me extra points, why will they dock me?
So even though I'm working constantly on this and burning out, I now have to push even harder to get done before the second appraisal or whatever we want to call it. And I have to solve all sorts of little problems, holes or missing trim or a light fixture we've partially removed—things we've already begun because hey, it's our house—because now the cosmetic things matter to our funding.
And it's dinner time, so I'm stopping again.
But I'm taking tonight off to go to the drive-in with Emma and Christian and see Star Trek. They've worked hard too, and they deserve a little reward.
I just hope I can stay awake through it! *yawn*
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Now playing: Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick
via FoxyTunes
4 comments:
Oh snap! My 17 million loads of laundry don't look so bad. I'm sorry. I think you need to call in some reinforcements. Good thing you have 17 millions neices, nephews, brothers, sisters, in-laws, etc.
Wow, Alyson, I'm so sorry this is taking so much out of you, but I can relate to some degree. Although we payed a heck of a lot of money to have someone come in and do most of our big job, I was still warn out, tired, grumpy and impatient with the entire process. My hat is off to you for doing this yourselves. How proud you will be with all your hard work when it's done. Maybe you need to lower your demands on yourself in other areas so you can focus on putting them on the house. Just a thought. You are way wife and mother of the year in my book!
The kitchen renovation was the hardest month of my stay-at-home life (and I had a fraction of the kids to worry about). Just keep thinking about those "after" pictures.
And it's not a bad idea to ask for help - neighbors, VTs, family - even if for a few hours of babysitting. Sometimes asking for help is the mark of a strong person too.
I have lived through some renovations, thankfully at the time, although I was pregnant, I didn't have kids yet, and I know it is sooooo not fun! I have a long distance hug being sent your way. I am sorry for the bank people too. Sometimes, they can be so stupid! Good luck!
PS- let us know if you managed to stay awake.... I am betting no :)
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