A Big Crybaby and a Wee Improvement

I know I'm going to sound like a whiny little privileged baby, but I'm just going to say it:

Graduate school is cramping my style.

Mainly my "extra money for home improvements" style. Because when you are a family of six living off of one graduate student's stipend, things are understandably tight. Also understandable: we knew things were going to be very tight, very reduced, and very basic when we got ourselves into this two years ago. We knew it was going to mean sacrificing things like house projects, fun money, vacations, landscaping (sob), new clothing, and other extras, and we also knew that it would be temporary. We agreed enduring these short term sacrifices were well worth the payout in the long run, and we knew that such a phenomenal offer from such a fabulous program was never going to happen again.

We knew all this. We still do.

But dang it, if that siding doesn't get crappier looking every day. And those last six, refusing-to-open windows with ripped screens are just sitting there, glaring at me. The basement has standing water when it rains. The kitchen is an embarrassment, with its original, cheap cabinets and six layers of linoleum and six inches of counter space. All three bedrooms are in major need of major decorating, and if I have to look at the peach paint in the upstairs hallway one more time, I'm going to scream. Minor projects get started and then languish for months after we run out of funds.

I could go on and on, because that's just the kind of rotten mood I'm in. I'm ungrateful for this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime doctoral program that has been such a gift to my fabulously intelligent and hardworking husband. I'm ungrateful for the fact that we have A HOUSE, an actual, we-own-it HOUSE with heating and central air conditioning and a solid roof and running water. I'm ungrateful that we are healthy and without major debt and living in a safe neighborhood in a safe city in a safe country. We are so fabulously wealthy, when you come down to it, and I'm ignoring that fact and am just going to wallow in misery because I can't justify the purchase of a gallon of paint, much less a new camera or those six final windows.

Poor me.

Thank you for enduring that. It was mildly therapeutic. And very embarrassing.

Anyway, my poor husband takes great pity on me, because, as he sees it, he gets all the great parts that go along with these sacrifices (namely, you know, THE DEGREE) without much of the crappier aspects. He's not a homemaker, so he is better able to ignore the niggling, unfinished or worn-out details that make me see red, nor is he left alone to single parent four children for long swathes of time, so he is sympathetic. Probably overly so, since I am a huge, ungrateful baby when you get down to brass tacks. (I have always wanted to use that phrase and I desperately hope I am using it correctly.)

So this month, when we did the budget and I got all pissy because we, once again, couldn't manage any house projects, he gave me a little wad of cash, not much in the grand scheme of things but worth quite a bit to us right now, and said, "Here. This is yours. I don't care how you spend it. Use it how you see fit." And I was determined to not just fritter this away on needful things for the children (those children) or, I don't know, coffee, but instead get at least one house project, no matter how minor, done and crossed off my list of about 672 other projects. It needed to be obvious so that I could see it everyday and say, "Hey. We did that. Woo us!" I needed a high that would stay in my system for a few weeks and positively contribute to our home.

Except actually my father-in-law did it after I handed him the raw materials. Behold, a place for my children to hang their things:

It's not much, but it makes a big difference in our getting-in-the-house-and-corralling-all-the-coats process. Here's what we call our "welcome center" directly above it, just to your left as you walk in our front door. Sure, it has hooks, but they are too high for our kids to reach, plus the board itself doesn't hold much weight. The blank space underneath had been driving me nuts for awhile, and I considered finding a small, narrow table before hitting on this much more functional and kid-friendly idea. And it works! They are trained.

I see that King Peter the Boy has even hung up her My Little Pony. Impressive.

I should note that I completely copied my sister-in-law, Janie, with this project, and that all glory goes to her, along with a fair amount to my father-in-law, who patiently measured and drilled and got everything actually on the wall. You guys rock.

Oh, and the mirror was clearanced out at our Target (they are expanding it into what I call a Real Target, after being at demi-Target status for years, and much has been clearanced in the expansion) and I found the hooks at Hobby Lobby. Total project cost: $12.

And because I'm embarrassed that I have been so grouchy lately, I offer this as penitence for my sins: a view of the "shoe rug" directly underneath the hooks.

They're technically ON the rug, okay?

I'm going to go drown my sorrows in cookies. At least I still have cookies.