Thursday, August 03, 2006

Shelf paper and temper tantrums....

Regardless of how "easy to apply" shelf paper may claim to be, I have yet to come across any that actually is easy to apply. If it doesn't stick to itself, it doesn't stick to the object to which it is applied. We are re-papering our kitchen cabinets, as the person before us felt that white plastic and packing tape were appropriate tools for shelf covering. The shelves themselves are a dark and forbidding particle board. Ick. Not that the re-papered shelves look much better than particle board, but at least you can see when they are dirty!!

Today was a hard day, continued resistance from the Monkey front occurred all afternoon. I tried to get her to take a nap, mainly because she wouldn't entertain herself long enough to let me finish any work, and that did not go over well. It began with the normal resistance; "I'm not tired", "Can I just rest?", "If I can't sleep can I play?" and then became a full fledged attack! "I am going back to Colorado without you!!", "I hate it here!!", "I don't want to live here with you!" etc. I maintained robot mom status, calmly informed her she wasn't leaving the state without us, and then told her her choices were nap, or grounded in her room until it was time to get her father. An hour later she was asleep. (Thankfully)

Still, a hard day. with many tears on her part and a dull headache on mine. So when she woke up we went and got Pizza Hut to try and restore good humor. Luckily it worked. She and I were happily singing away in the car and giggling all the way to get Lee.

Well, it is getting more real. This whole "Crap! I live here now!!" feeling. I keep expecting to get on the plane home, but each day, there is less of that, and more of a sense of permanency. Not a sense of home, but a sense of permanency.

Oh! Last night we were getting Monkey to bed when she started yelling " a firefly mama! A firefly!" AND THERE THEY WERE!! All these little bugs with light up bottoms flying around my front yard. Neither she nor I had ever seen one before, so we got to share that experience together. Which was very, very special. After it got really dark, I got her out of bed to look for more, but alas, they were finished with thier light show for the night. I will have to try and catch some on film.

Missing you all...

Your Denver girl, signing out on the east coast.

3 comments:

The Observer said...

Aha! I know who Tek is despite Tek's craftily opaque profile (that is, no information whatsoever).

Miss you guys.

Anonymous said...

Misty:
I've been thinking about you and how the transition to a totally different enviroment is so challenging. Since we just made the move ourselves, I do recall a pretty tough time right after we got here - house not set up, still trying to find how to get to work and needing a map to figure Baltimore out - and I just thought the confusion would go on for ever. But it didn't take too long and we had at least found the basics - WalMart and a good grocery store, place to buy plants to replace the ones we left behind, safe place to shop for clothes (Baltimore is ringed by ghettos) - and after about a month I thought we'd do OK.

The fireflies were wonderful for me, too, along with hearing birds I've never heard or seen before - mocking birds and cardinals and goldfinches - and seeing all the wonderful trees - Wyoming is pretty barren. Here, if there isn't a parking lot, there's a forest.

We also focused on finding the special things - the Inner Harbor, National Aquarium, Science Museum (great for kids), and once it isn't so hot, we'll go back out again to historic sites like Fort McHenry and find more places to hike - there's a national forest that runs right through Baltimore County!

Take Marlena and explore the Amish Country - I'll bet Ellen would love to go, once she gets settled too. I'll meet you. We should have adventures!

Scylla said...

Wow. New Jersey has Amish Country? That would be so cool to see!!! What a great idea! Granted, my romaticized ideals about the Amish stem from seeing "Witness" with Harrison Ford, so that may be coloring my enthusiasm, but I am very interested to learn that is near by.

Sadly my knowledge of New Jersey had previously been limited to "The Garbage State" "New York's neighbor" and "The Armpit of the Nation" (or does that one belong to Alabama?)

I am finding it pretty, but I keep wanting to meet Dad for lunch, or call mom for shopping, and am most effected that I can't. :(

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