Back Flip Into Fuzziness

My new thing that I tried this week: nitrous. Oh, and how glorious it was for that 45 minutes of fuzziness. Going to the dentist has a whole new meaning to me now and after that experience, I don’t think I’ll be postponing my next appointment for a cleaning.

Me: Give me a hit doc, I’ll pay what it takes!

Doc: Victoria you’re only getting a cleaning. We only use nitrous for invasive procedures.

Me: But doc, I’m afraid of the little mirror and the little pokey thing. I get cold sweats when it comes near me and my whole body goes tense. Nitrous makes me feel fuzzy and I have visions of spinning in circles with flowers in my hair and even enjoy the soft pop music that is playing on the radio. Come on doc, what do you say?

Oh no, I’m a nitrous addict from one hit! Okay, so it was most likely the timing of the appointment that led me to ask for nitrous, or maybe it was because the last time I was at my dentist’s office I had a horrible experience from getting a crown…either way, I needed the nitrous today and it wasn’t only because of my horrible tooth pain that had me up at night and wound up in a ball of nerves.

Over the last few days I noticed a small bump on the living room wall along with discoloration of the paint color and as I went to touch it, my hand went through the wall. Yup, just like that with hardly any pressure. Hand. Through. Wall. Sort of the same sinking feeling of: Poop. On. Carpets. But much worse. And boy can my imagination get away from me.

Within five minutes, I had estimated what the damage was going to be based on the wall this was on (lower-level supporting wall below bathroom above) and knowing that on the other side of the wall is HALF of our kitchen, it just wasn’t looking good. I had already started to plan where else to put the Christmas tree since our living room was going to be under construction and where we would be eating out since half of the kitchen would be demolished and had already started to convince Maddox (in my head) he had to be okay with showering at the age of 4 since the bathroom with the bathtub would be going through a demolition to find the black mold and sewer water that was leaking and infesting half of the house which would lead us to living in a hotel due to the exposure of the poisonous, airborne mold caused by the incompetent plumber that supposedly put in “new” plumbing before we purchased the house ending in a dramatic court battle of me on the stand withering away from the long term effects of the black mold and stress put on my body since “who knows how long this has been sitting there leaking” with the Judge ruling the plumbers insurance pay for all of the damages…2 years later. With this vision in my head and $40K spent in a matter of seconds, my whole body tensed and I felt sick to my stomach the rest of the day. So, I did what every woman needs to do and I called my girlfriends for therapy.

Thank goodness I have them. Men, this is why women live longer. We talk about all of this stuff. We get it out of our system, plan every move strategically together, we support each other and then we feel better. From the talking and strategizing, we can look at it as a blessing and can then approach the matter with gusto and level headedness. Yes, it may seem crazy to you that after the crying and the pacing we suddenly are ready for the challenge whatever the outcome may be because in the end we will end up with a new kitchen and isn’t a new kitchen what it’s all about? Oh, wait, got ahead of myself. Okay, so it’s not about the new kitchen as nice as that would be, it’s about keeping all of this in perspective. I mean, we still have a house that is warm and I can still feed my kids, right? “I am keeping it all in perspective,” is what I told myself on Sunday two days before I sit here to tell you what came from the calls to the inspector, the lawyer (father-in-law), two plumbers and the contractor that then assessed the damage. I may not have slept well on Sunday and Monday but I still kept it all in perspective like a good little student of Perspectiveness.

As I am keeping all of this in “perspective” my lovely daughter hands me an essay she wrote about why she is “Thankful” which was meant to be given to me on Thanksgiving Day but since we had had two snow days and missing school right before the holiday, she couldn’t bring it home until Monday. When I read it, it was like that Back Flip Into Fuzziness feeling. All of the chaos and the years of sometimes feeling like “what the hell am I doing in the suburbs doing what feels like the same damn thing everyday (laundry, cleaning, errands, etc.) invisibleness,” all came together in the two short minutes while I read her sweet words in her sweet writing. It was like unraveling a Belgian truffle and wondering with excitement what it may be filled with. Her timing of handing me that jewel was perfect. Time stopped and I didn’t care anymore what would reveal itself due to this plumbing leak and possible mold infestation. This essay I read really taught me about perspective. The perspective I thought I had didn’t even come close to this perspective.

In the end, the plumbing problem turned out to be a simple fix due to a stupid mistake on our part. Uh huh, OUR FAULT! We hung up shelving two years ago and not one, but THREE screws went through the pipe. How funny is that?! Not so funny but sort of funny while you’re on nitrous. I guess to our defense, the contractor told us the pipe was placed where a stud should be (studs are placed 16 inches apart) and that he probably would have done the same thing by mistaking a pipe for a stud. Our “stud finder” also made the mistake by beeping like crazy when it found the pipe so I guess it wasn’t that stupid of a mistake on our part. It was a very well thought out and planned one. The good news is the screws stayed in place for about two years keeping the pipe sealed, until recently and the mold hadn’t spread, other than on the drywall that is already taken down. The project will be done by the end of the week with intermittent stops made by the contractor as we wait for the dry wall to dry. Total of time spent on the project should be a couple of hours, not two years later and it should cost about $200, not $40K.

I have to believe that in keeping all of this in perspective and knowing that in the end it would was going to “all be okay” shifted the whole experience as woo-woo as that sounds. This surrendering got me to this point of peace and as much as I want to believe it was the nitrous that got me there, it truly wasn’t.

Poop on the Carpets!

It’s been over three years in this house and I want out. Did you know that when my family and I first walked into this home on our first day of purchase, we were met with dog poop and urine stains all over the carpets upstairs? This was at a time when our son was only 10 months old, crawling around and putting everything in his mouth. Poop. And urine. But how would you know that since you just met me? I say this now so you can feel the shock that I feel every time I think of that horrid memory that was scald into my brain and nasal passages and so we can start from the beginning of why I have been driven to write this blog.

So, back to the poopy and urine stinky carpets…

In our purchase agreement, the sellers asked if they could “rent” the house they were selling to us for one month since the home they were moving into was delayed in it’s building process. Sure. Why not? We are reasonable people and why not help a family who was moving due to taking in an elderly mother. So, we rented it back to them for one month. This is when I suspect the cleaning of the poop and the urine did not take place because if I would have smelled that shit, I would’ve known because I am cursed with a nose that smells everything! I once walked into a bathroom in a rental house and told the landlord there was black mold behind the vanity and he thought I was a crazy over-paranoid mother. I asked if he could just check and sure enough, black mold. That’s what I mean by everything so I would NOT have missed poop and urine. That’s too easy. Back to my story…after much deliberation between the agents and our lawyer, the sellers ended up paying for new carpet upstairs since the carpet was not in the same condition it was during inspection. This all took two months to be agreed upon and in the meantime, we could not move our kids into their rooms, that’s how bad the rooms were. Did I mention our son was 10 months old at the time?

We got through the whole ordeal but it did take about two to three months to get settled into our home and as I look back at it, it was just sad. I sort of feel a bit robbed. Robbed of that feeling a couple experiences when moving into a home with their two children they may be possibly be raising them in and creating many years of memories of Life lived in the home. Moving with two kids, one being under a year old, is not easy and moving into an unwelcome experience only made it that much harder and stressful.

Shortly after the move I ended up getting really sick which has affected my life since. I was so sick that my doctor put me on bed rest. The frustrating thing is not one doctor could actually tell me what is wrong. The hardest part of all of it is I look okay but there are days that I literally am crawling up the stairs I’m so fatigued. Yes, this is three years later. This is not an easy thing to battle with two active children.

I can look at this whole experience and can continue living my life feeling this resentment towards my house OR I can choose to take it one day at time and do my best to fill it with love. I’ve come up with a few ideas or inspirations that may change things up a bit.

One thing I know is we have too much stuff and I want to get rid of what we don’t love or need anymore. Plain and simple. This is something I have wanted to do but get stifled the minute I start doing it. Enough is enough. Is it true that decluttering can relieve some stress? I believe it will. This house has been so neglected and I not only plan to declutter my own stuff, I plan on making home improvements that make sense and are in the budget to do so.

In return, if I can get through all of my stuff and make some small and some large improvements to the home and still feel the way I do right now, then we are out of here. If however, I feel better physically and have gained a sense of peace and serenity that I so yearn for then I will stay if this is where we are meant to stay.

So, here are my challenges to myself:

• I will work on one project a week of home improvement. That project can be something as simple as updating the light switch covers to white instead of 1970s beige to something like replacing a chandelier.

• I will spend 15 minutes a day decluttering something. To keep focus, I will cut up written pieces of paper of areas in the home that could use decluttering, place the papers in a jar and select one task out of the jar each day. Each task can only take 15 minutes! I’m going to call this “Beat the Timer” task of the day.

• Once a week I will try something new outside of the house. Whether it is a new food at a new restaurant or something I’ve always wanted to try that doesn’t involve food…or maybe even something I’m scared of. The list of ideas will be posted shortly. I think this is important even though it doesn’t have anything to do with the home front because I have been so consumed by the home and how horrible I feel that getting out actually helps me feel better which in return helps me reacquaint myself with the part of me that was inspired and full of passion.

• I will post a photograph of the week. I am learning how to use my SLR camera on Manual settings so photographers, please be gentle. I’m learning.