This Is Me Taking Back Control Of My Life.What The Fuck Have You Done Lately?

Tomorrow is my birthday. I can say Today is my birthday  in German, French, or Spanish . . . (it’s most fascinating in German) but that doesn’t interest you. Suffice to say, those few days during which Rusty is older than I are ending; and I’m a tad cranky. About many things. For instance, I recently saw Facebook posts from two dear friends/family, and it was all I could do not to correct their grammar. But that would have been considered poor form, right? Right, Sally? Come on . . . work with me here.

On the other hand . . . who writes this crap?! Was it the fault of my friend for posting it? Well, to some extent, yes . . . she could have at the least noted the poor grammar contained within the truism of the meme. But more importantly, who the F is too old, too tired, TOO sober, and lacking the time for proper punctuation and proper grammar? Riddle me that! Rob/Sally, am I correct here, or not?! I wanted to post a FB reply that said precisely that: "Too . . . for what? proper grammar and punctuation?" And it's birthday eve, so I've deemed myself entitled to some genuine derogatory comments because I'm old! I'll go further: yin and yang. Get with it folks. It is never Ying and Yang. It's yin and yang. GOOGLE! Hello? Clearly, I'm on a birthday-eve spiral.

Once upon a time I defended a brilliant physician in a completely frivolous malpractice lawsuit brought by Donna (and that was actually her first name). I’ll never forget it: during Donna’s deposition in response to a simple question (probably something as irrelevant as her birthday), she replied, My life is a living hell! Well her life was far from a living hell, but since that date many friends (and certainly Rusty) know that when I whine My life is a living hell, I’m purposely being melodramatic, if not completely sarcastic. As I post this pre-birthday entry, my life is a living hell. The dog that is my entire world wants attention; I had to prepare dinner; I'm bar-tending for the man who should be catering to my every whim, and we had a fight this morning about Rusty's inability to find corn starch. Yes. Corn starch. Precious one, if you knew how to thicken a sauce with a tempered egg, the M.I.A. corn starch would not have been an issue.

But on we go. I’ve done many things in my life of which I’m not particularly proud. Dear God, the time wasted with all of those seasons of Project Runway. Let’s face it: if you’ve seen one season, you’ve seen ‘em all. Except for the season with Austin Scarlet. Oh, and that season with Mondo Guerra, which was truly life-changing. Anyway, I must disagree with Tim Gunn, the guru of style. Matchy-matchy is not always a bad thing. I’m defiantly a bag-and-shoes-should-match kind of gal. True, it’s no longer a carved-in-stone fashion dogma, and there are certainly exceptions. But generally I strive for matchy-matchy in bag and shoes.

So speaking of proud . . . let me first state that I am not proud of myself. Here it comes . . . I created a DIY project inspired by (God help me) . . . Pinterest; and we all know how I hate the lies perpetrated on Pinterest. Yet for reasons passing understanding, I’m still drawn to the site. Hey, I said it was cyberspace heroin. 

We had five pallets of belongings (and tools) shipped from the U.S.; and in the days before Rusty had his play-room and garage/carport, all of his tools (many still in their original boxes) were on our terrace. Not a pretty sight for this obsessive organizer. As we finally completed the indoor nesting we were left with five pallets, so Rusty very cleverly created a work bench from pallet timbers. And no, Rusty didn’t need Pinterest for bench ideas . . . he’s a natural and talented carpenter. Then, within seconds of its completion the bench was covered with boy toys. Mere seconds, I say! Hideous. And let’s remember that Rusty carves things – from spoons to large, marvelous Tiki and Moai heads. Anyway, the already cluttered table was covered in sawdust and wood shavings. 

Little by little Rusty has moved his toys to the boy playhouse. Nevertheless, the workbench remained hideous and topped with clutter, some of which (I concede) was mine from ModgePodge® projects, rain chains, painting wooden jungle animals, etc. But the majority of my crafting is performed on our outdoor dining table. Once again, too much clutter on what should always be a perfectly staged table. Stop the madness. I need my own little corner to play . . . to design my fused glass projects, to ModgePodge® (I believe that’s a noun and a verb), to paint driftwood, and to do Kathy projects for which we have no room in our home, yard, or anyplace on our 1.65 acres, more or less. Then I saw it . . . that painted table on Pinterest.

Now one of the many benefits of the world’s best realtor and builder was the granting of gallons of touch-up paint. So I had a half-gallon of paint remaining from the re-painting of our home’s exterior. Mauve may be the color-of-the-year somewhere in the world (as Becky’s recent pedicure pronounced), but not here at Mil Colinas. So I decided to begin by painting portions of the workbench with our existing house-color terra cotta diluted with only a smidge of white paint (matchy-matchy), and then to build on that color to darken, lighten, enhance several other shades of paint with these tiny jars of burnt orange or burnt umber paint that we discovered in Nicoya. Bam. One painted workbench just for me, which is so matchy-matchy that it blends in beautifully with our terracotta terrace walls.

So while I’m not proud of my Pinterest addiction, I am proud of the table . . . as well as my ability to prune all of our shrubberies this morning and get in a four-hour nap. Now that’s what I call a productive day. See how the colors blend and compliment the light terracotta wall color? But wait, it gets better . . . or worse . . . because my life is a living hell. I’ve been wanting some chalk board paint. I am a pro with chalk board paint, and it occurred to me that I could re-paint a few of the workbench boards with chalk board paint for all of those complicated mathematical equations that I perform prior to painting a wooden frog or Modge-Podging a Take Your Xanax sign. So today I bought a quart of chalkboard paint and, yes, then scurried off to Pinterest for additional ideas. After all, I don’t need a quart to cover five-to-seven boards (must be an odd number . . . goes without saying, right?). What will I do with the majority of the remaining quart?

Well here’s what I found, so laugh with me. Does this have disaster written all over it, or what? Why are humans allowed to post this nonsense. Woe to the mom who buys this idea and failed to paint her yellow walls with I-can-scrub-it paint. What happens when that kid grows six inches, as I understand kids are want to do? Of course this was staged. Mom drew all the art and probably rented a kid to stand there with a piece of plastic chalk so as not to ruin her walls. 

Then there’s this nonsense for holding trays (and God knows that indeed I do need more tray storage). Like this doesn’t have a sign inviting dust/filth/bugs/flour/ants?! Pinterest. Not proud of the addiction, but proud of one little matchy-matchy table. Okay. rant over. And to those of you with those FB post containing poor grammar or even that's-not-a-proper-phrase posting . . .  I do still love you. 

And I'll go further: I will re-read this post a half-dozen times after its publication and find 285 typos and uses of imperfect grammar. So who am I (click there and find out) to criticize . . . other than an another old person on birthday eve? Hey, Lo que hay.