We got licensed!

We finally have a home business license so my husband, a speech pathologist, can start seeing clients inside our very own house.  It was hard to pull this off.  We are relieved. We had a number of barriers along the way. The Faux Floor Fiasco I stained the floors myself, when I was eight months pregnant with my last child.  This involved crouching over my enormous belly and attacking the floor with three different colors of die in spray bottles.  If I had to do it again, I would buy airbrushes.  The final effect of the cheap spray bottles was fine, but my hands ached for days afterward and the bottles kept breaking, so I used several  (although even several cheap bottles was probably less expensive than buying three airbrushes.)  Oh, and my back hurt for days, too.  I don't think you're supposed to spend hours crawling when you are that pregnant.  (It was a harmless, water-based die, though, so no inhalation problems.  The kid was not born with an extra arm or anything.) Twenty-four hours later, after the die was supposed to have set, according to the instructions on the can, we examined my work.  The die seemed to have turned into chalk and it rubbed right off when you stepped on it.  I was mortified.  We concluded that the unusually frigid fall temperatures may have sabotaged my project.  We didn't have heat in that part of the house yet, and with only colder weather on its way, we covered the whole floor with plastic and decided to revisit this project in the spring.

Restroom: Hard to see, but my talented hubby crafted curved shelves that wrap around the path of the open mirror cabinet. The cat is not a permanent fixture; she just wanted to pose for the photo. Lobby The hills are a chalkboard for the kids. Cool shelves behind the desk camouflage a plumbing area in the corner. My husband and brother-in-law threw in a shower at the last minute in the corner of the restroom. Completely unnecessary for the office, but not an expensive change and why not have a 3/4 bath instead of a 1/2?

Come spring, my benevolent parents came to help us try to establish that office.  We pulled off the plastic and started washing the floors to try again.  To our shock, the chalk washed off--and stained floors were discovered underneath it!  It had worked, after all, and all we had to do was clean the floors and add the sealer!  Hurray!

Note:  If you ever want the option of staining concrete at your house, warn the construction workers to only use pencil or chalk, no permanent markers, for measuring marks.  Believe it or not, you also have to tell them to do this on your walls, even those that are already painted.

The Concrete Barrier
Our office is in the basement, but has a ramp leading down to it to accommodate the many clients with disabilities that my husband treats.  When the addition to the house that includes the office was under construction, my clever hubby suggested that the construction team deviate from the original plan and extend the roof over the ramp, adding columns matching those on our front porch, in order to prevent snow from building up in the ramp.  The end result is very cool--it looks like our porch wraps around the house, instead of leaving an ugly exposed ramp.

The ramp wraps halfway around the house before it reaches ground level, so we needed to add a sidewalk to get to the ramp from the driveway.  Actually, we needed to add the driveway, itself, since the new addition was located where the old driveway used to be.  It was November when we finally got a concrete crew out.  They finished the driveway, and most of the walkway, but left two squares of concrete undone, the two that would have connected the sidewalk to the ramp.  Then it was too cold to finish the job, so entering the office involved going down a sidewalk to a mud trap that you had to somehow survive before you reached the concrete ramp that took you the rest of the way there.  Not exactly ADA compliant.

Contractors generally turn their noses up at such tiny projects and so we were stuck with the mud trap until almost a year later when my husband worked up the nerve to try to pour it himself.  My dad helped him and they did a great job; the sidewalk turned out beautifully and the mud trap is no more.

The First Attempt
We tried to apply for our license for the first time last spring.  We still didn't have those missing squares in the walkway, but I temporarily filled in the gap with pavers and crossed my fingers that would suffice for the time. My husband and brother-in-law got the heat working and my family came over and helped us finish up painting.

The city denied our application due to unfinished landscaping.  We knew you had to comply with city code to get the license, but our unfinished yard was not considered illegal because the house was being remodeled.  Apparently, you have to finish remodeling before you can get the license.

This failed attempt made us a little wary of trying again.  We were very detail-oriented on our second try.  We even had "no smoking" and "restroom" signage, art, and magazine rack with magazines in place.  As for that yard...I have tried, hard, to grow things in that lousy soil and sometimes the results even looked nice...but not consistently.  I was always scared that the inspector would show up on one of those not-so-pretty days, so after the snow started falling, it occurred to us that we should get that application in now, while the yard was  covered.

Even though we reapplied in December, I was still feeling a little paranoid, so I did quite a bit of winter yard work to make sure things were spiffy enough out there. A concerned neighbor asked me if he couldn't send over his sons to do whatever crazy project I was trying to do out in the snow while in my third trimester of pregnancy.  (Hey, at least being pregnant keeps you warmer.)

We didn't hear from the city for a long time and finally called to inquire.  We had learned last time, when we didn't find out we were denied until we called and asked, that no news is bad news.  However, this time all was in order--except for the code compliance officer signature.  He or she had not yet checked out our yard.  And it was February and the snow had melted!  I was scared.  But the very next day, they called back and said the license was in the mail.  Hurray!

Planning an unplanned home birth

Now that I have reached that stage of pregnancy where I am much too large and uncomfortable to sleep, I have lots of late-night hours available to ponder the upcoming birth.

A few days ago, the paper carried a story about a woman who gave birth on University Parkway, a local road. "Are we going to do that?" I asked my husband.

"No," he reassured me. "We'll have our baby on 104th, or Redwood Rd., or 90th."

With roadside deliveries so rare, why do I even worry about this? I have two children, and in most ways their births were similar. They were each born a few days after their due dates, healthy and weighing 7 1/2 pounds. Other than gender, they even looked exactly the same. There was one important difference. My daughter, the first-born, had a "prolonged" labor and my son had a "precipitous" labor.

So, if I maintain this pattern, I will have this:
Baby 1: three days labor
Baby 2: three hours labor
Baby 3: three minutes labor

Of course, births are unique and may not follow predictable patterns, but I read the section on "emergency home delivery" aloud to my husband, just in case.

My First Labor

I started having regular contractions on Monday, one day after my due date. I reported to my husband that I thought I was in labor. He was dubious. "You don't appear to be in pain," he pointed out.

"I'm in pain," I countered. "I'm just happy that I might get this baby out."

That night, those irritating and painful (in a menstrual cramps kind of way) contractions kept me up all night. I timed them. They were rhythmic, coming less than 4 minutes apart and lasting almost a minute a piece, all the criteria of real childbirth contractions worthy of hospital admittance, according to my childbirth education class.

Halfway through 4 Hours of Pushing

and looking as miserable as I was.

There was one criterion the class failed to cover. "You don't sound like you're in pain," noted the nurse on the phone when I called the next morning. That stupid pain thing again! It hurt! Ouch already! However, she agreed that my symptoms sounded promising and told me to stay in the neighborhood of the hospital until I managed to achieve more pain, as it did sound like I would have a baby later that day.

So I stayed in the neighborhood.  I skipped work, painted the changing table and went out to eat. The day dragged on.  My pain was consistent, but never worse.  We had heard that sex can hurry things up, so we tried that.  It didn't.  We had heard that exercise helps, so I took a very long walk across the college campus and visited my husband's office on the thirteenth floor of his building--using the stairs, not the elevator.  Nope.  During my walk, I saw my neighbor, whose wife was due the same day I was, dashing off towards the hospital with a balloon bouquet.  Sigh.

At about nine at night, my mom called to see if anything was happening.  I moaned about my inability to feel more pain and she suggested I call my cousin, who taught childbirth classes, for advice.  I hung up the phone and was walking toward the computer to get her phone number when I doubled over in what was definitely Much More Pain. 

As soon as I could manage it, I informed my husband that I was ready.  He stalled.  He needed a shower.  He wanted me to wait!  So I did.  I turned on the TV to distract myself while I puffed and panted and paced through the contractions, which were definitely much worse than menstrual cramps.  Unfortunately, the only thing I found on TV was an episode of Rosanne that deviated from its usual sit-com format to explore a more serious theme in which one of Rosanne's daughters has a complicated childbirth.  Great choice for the circumstances.

We finally arrived at the hospital at about 11 at night.  The nurse examined me and determined that I was dilated to 3 ½ cm.  According to my childbirth education class, that meant that I was in active labor and admittable to the hospital.  However, since I had been dilated to a 3 at my last prenatal exam, the midwife was not impressed.  She sent me to walk the halls. 

During the walk, I advanced from “much more pain,” to “much, much, much, more pain.”  In an effort to distract myself again, we went to visit my neighbor, the lucky one who had already delivered her baby.  She was very gracious about accepting guests in the middle of the night.  My husband complimented her on her cute baby, she complimented me on the excellent way I was breathing through my contractions, and I was pretty much incapable of contributing to the conversation in any way.

At my childbirth education class, where they emphasized the non-necessity of the epidural, my husband and I had agreed that I would tell him when I felt I needed one, and we would then wait twenty minutes before actually getting one on the theory that I could put up with anything for twenty minutes. I had passed those twenty minutes by far before I was actually admitted to the hospital and medication became an option. 

At about one, the nurse examined me again.  She admitted that I hadn’t changed much, but she said that she would tell the midwife that I had dilated to almost 3 ¾ and that I was in a lot of pain and ready for medication, in the hopes that I wouldn’t have to continue the torturous walk around the hospital.

It worked, and at about two, I was admitted. Soon, I finally had an epidural and went back to the menstrual cramp-style pain I had become so accustomed to over the past few days.  Phiew. 

The midwife ruptured my membranes in an attempt to speed things up, and suggested that I probably wouldn't be ready to begin pushing until about seven the next morning and should get some sleep. I tried to comply, but I was excited. I called my family, who was excited too. In fact, my sister, the only sibling with kids and therefore the only one who hadn't become an aunt or uncle yet, was so excited she arrived at the hospital for the 7 am labor at about 5.

At about seven, the next shift's midwife announced that things were still slow and put me on Pitocin. Around ten, I was finally ready to start pushing. We put on some very pleasant music, positioned a mirror so I could see the triumphant arrival of my daughter, got the cameras ready, and prepared to meet her.

Meeting her was not forthcoming.  I spent four hours pushing, in fact. My epidural had eliminated some, but not all, of the contraction pain, which is good, because I had no trouble determining when to push.  Epidurals do absolutely nothing for the kind of pain you feel from complete physical exhaustion and that kind of pain grew worse and worse through this ordeal.  Imagine running a marathon, without training first, after two straight nights of not sleeping.

My husband, parents and siblings were there to support me.  I was at a teaching hospital, and the midwife and the nurse both asked if they could bring in trainees.   Sure, I said; I am not shy, and the more the merrier.  And since this labor went on for so long, the pediatric team arrived hours before they could actually do their work. My delivery room was probably one of the most crowded ever seen.  But that was good, because I really needed support--emotional and physical.  I had people cooling me down, warming me up, moving my legs, rubbing my back, and generally cheering.  Some of my family members who hold the priesthood in our church gave me a blessing. All of this was comforting, although nothing could actually make me comfortable.

As I got further on, I retained the ability to push, but sacrificed my ability to do anything else.  Between contractions, I laid there nearly comatose for those short breaks.  I was unable to focus well enough to even look at that mirror, where my baby's head  was visible each time I pushed for what seemed like, and maybe was, hours.

I asked the midwife if they couldn't pull her out--didn't they have a vacuum or forceps or something?  She said that would not be good for the baby and I was making progress without such tools.  I managed to see that mirror, with that head looking just the same as always, and wondered what progress she was seeing.  But I didn't wonder too much, because I was too miserable to think.

At one point the midwife brought in an Ob-Gyn for a second opinion.  He agreed that I was clearly making progress, albeit slow progress, and that I would eventually be able to push that baby out.  I was  outnumbered, because they both thought I could do it and I was not at all convinced.

After about four hours of this, at about 2 in the afternoon, the midwife fretfully and apologetically suggested an episiotomy to make more exit room for the baby.  Yes! Please! Anything that would get her out of me would be perfect!  I was much less squeamish about the idea than she apparently was.  And finally, that baby came out of there.

In movies, and I think, often in real life, this is where the mother, in spite of the pain and exhaustion, is overjoyed.  I was not.  I laid down, closed my eyes, and was hardly able to open them again.  I really didn't even see the baby.  As soon as she was freed from my too-tight birth canal, my husband and other family members abandoned my bedside and ran off to follow the baby, who I am sure was much cuter at that point then I was. While I wasn't sensible enough to see most of what was going on, it was still obvious that my husband was in raptures over the new child.  I think she had enough attention in spite of her mother's apparent indifference.  After she was examined and cleaned, the nurse brought her to me, which is when I knew I was supposed to cuddle and nurse her, but I tried to hold her and couldn't.  My arms were so weak and shaky I thought I would drop her and told them to take her away.  I was hungry, so I asked for food.  They brought me a sack lunch and with great effort I pulled out a banana. But I couldn't peel it.  I think that is when I started crying.  Not the tears of joy you're supposed to shed, either.

They moved me to the maternity ward and a cheerful nurse was giving me some sort of instructions.  I couldn't interpret them and I fell asleep while she was talking.  I slept for hours.  It wasn't until the next morning that I finally really met the baby and decided that I liked her.  I was happy to report this to my husband, who was shocked.  He had liked her immediately. 

During labor, the medical team had kept discussing how the baby was obviously very big for my birth canal.  When the head had first crowned, it appeared bald, so I imagined a bald, 10 pound infant. In fact, my baby was blond, so her hair wasn't visible until she was washed, and the biggest shocker--weighed in at exactly 7 1/2 pounds, the average baby size.  That baby was not big.  Apparently, my birth canal was very small. All the medical staff assured me that by getting the baby through, I had stretched out the exit path and my next delivery would be much easier.  I could not imagine ever doing that again.  But I did...

My Second Labor

This is a much shorter story, because it was a much shorter labor. My second baby was due on Thanksgiving day, and several relatives who lived out-of-town were anxious for the baby to arrive on Thanksgiving weekend so they could meet the baby before returning to their homes.

By now, I was experienced at giving birth and knew that it was a three-day process for me, so when nothing had happened by the end of the holiday, I let my family members know they would have to wait to meet the baby on their next visit.

The Saturday following Thanksgiving, my husband, my daughter, myself and my mother-in-law (who was staying at our house for the holiday and the birth) were up late watching "Hairspray". At about 11 at night, my husband jostled the surface I was sitting on and I felt something wet. I ran into the bathroom to see what was going on and my very curious and speedy two year-old daughter raced in after me, arriving so close on my heels that I couldn't close the door in front of her. She was there to witness myself examining the small flood I was creating.

My husband had explained the birth process to her earlier and she had wisely chosen not to believe him. It was apparent to her that Mommy did not have a hole large enough to eject a baby from her vagina.

However, seeing is believing. "Daddy, Daddy, the baby is trying to get out through Mommy's vagina and he's making lots of water!" she yelled.

Since we now had Daddy's attention, I asked him to bring me a clean pair of panties and a maxi pad.

A minute later, I asked him for another clean pair of panties and another maxi pad. This is when my mother-in-law, who had experience with this sort of thing that I lacked, suggested that my husband stop this silly maxi pad effort, get me a big towel to wrap around myself and take me to the hospital.

The towel was certainly more effective than the pads had been, but I still questioned the advice to go to the hospital. I was in no pain at all and I had learned last time that lots and lots of pain was a definite prerequisite to hospital admission.

So I called the doctor. I reached a machine, which said, "If your water has broken, report directly to the hospital."

Okay. So we grabbed the suitcase and got in the car. During the short drive, I started to feel the menstrual cramp-type pains that had plagued me for two days last time. When we arrived at the hospital, they really hurt, so I asked my husband to help me in and get the suitcase after, and if, they had admitted me.

"Your water has broken!" said the cheerful nurse at the front desk, looking at the slip of paper I had filled out specifying my reason for coming to the hospital. "Did you have a big gush?"

"Yes."

"Have contractions started?"

"A few minutes ago."

And I was suddenly and magically admitted: no cervical exam or adequate pain necessary.

As we followed another nurse to the delivery room, we asked if my husband could go home and take a nap, and if so, when he should be back to coach. (We both had agreed after the first time that it would have been better for him to have gone home and gotten a good night's rest before nearly a full day of coaching.)

The nurse stopped and stared at us for a few seconds like we were absolutely nuts, then said, "Don't go home. You're having a baby."

She quickly recovered and redoubled her efforts to get us set up quickly for delivery. It seemed like an unnecessary rush to me and I tried to reassure her that she could relax since I was so slow at giving birth. She was not convinced. Her judgment proved better than mine, because within seconds after getting into my room I had advanced to that level of much, much more pain.

The nurse was frantically, and unsuccessfully, trying to get the doctor and the anesthesiologist into the room, and it seemed that every few seconds she announced that I was dilated another centimeter wider. It hurt, and all of my comfort tools--the music, the back massager, the heating pad--were stuck in my suitcase in the car, and of course there hadn't been time to get my mom or my sister over there. I desperately glanced over at the monitor at one point to see why I couldn't feel the lull between contractions and I saw one long line spanning the top of the screen, without ever dipping down at all. The nurse saw me look and shook her head sympathetically before calling the anesthesiologist. Again. She scolded whomever she was speaking to over the phone and told them it would be too late if I did not get an epidural right now.

The anesthesiologist finally did show up and admitted that a few seconds later would have been too late. I had a spot that still hurt, but there was no time to fix it and since I felt so much better than before I was not complaining. A physician arrived--not mine, whom they hadn't been able to reach. He apologized because he did not think they would be able to get my doctor over on time. "Will you catch the baby?" I asked. He assured me that he would, and I was satisfied. As long as the poor child wasn't left to fall on the floor, I really didn't care who caught him.

No Time for Pictures During This Labor

Here I am afterward, with my daughter meeting
the baby and stealing his bink for the first time.

Now that I had a doctor, it was time to push. I braced myself for a few hours of pushing, but about twenty minutes later, I was startled when the doctor tossed the baby into my lap. "He came out already!" I exclaimed.

It was about 2 am--three hours after my water had broken. I was not even tired! I got to enjoy my little newborn. My husband, wiser from experience, checked with me to see if I needed his support before he took off to follow the baby through his bath and exam. I told him to go ahead--I felt great and I was alert enough this time to watch too, from across the room.  And then they brought the baby back to me and I had no problem at all cuddling and cooing and nursing him.  My parents came over shortly thereafter to meet the new grandchild and the rest of the family came in the morning, before anyone had to get out of town. I was ready and able to visit, not nearly comatose like I had been for the first 24 hours after my first child's birth.

Fast or slow, birth hurts, but fast is definitely better.

A Lifetime Dream Achieved...if the cat isn't terminally ill

On one of our early dates, my husband-to-be and I discussed some of our goals in life.  I planned to someday own a cat.  Before you make fun, think of what it takes to own a cat that I had not achieved yet.  You need to live in a stable environment (since cats do not do well with frequent moves) and you have to live in a place where you are allowed to choose a pet other than a goldfish.  At the time, I was moving about two or three times a year for various semester changes and summer employment opportunities and from one no-pets-allowed apartment or dorm to another.

Getting married did not change that, since I married someone who was starting a PhD program and we promptly moved into married student campus housing.  But when we did purchase our first condo, we tried to make my dream come true.  We adopted a beautiful cat named Kita from the humane society, not knowing that Kita suffered from a terminal illness that would end her life soon thereafter.

We were only in the condo for a short time when we had the "opportunity" to acquire the construction project we currently reside in.  Once again, I found myself in life circumstances unfitting for cat ownership.  Cats do not do well in construction.  (Case in point: One of my childhood pets hid from the construction workers under the unfinished tub during a bathroom remodeling project and they entombed her when they tiled it up.  She did survive the incident, but ran away not long after that trauma.)

However, when my aunt needed to find a new family for her cat, Callie, and thought of us and our recently de-petted situation, we couldn't say no.  Callie was a charming animal, until she took ill a few weeks later.  The vet assured us that her imminent demise had nothing to do with us or even the plenitude of construction materials in the poor animal's final living quarters.  Although my aunt had not known, she had been terminally ill for sometime.

 So I decided that my dream would have to wait, both until the construction project became a suitable home and until I recovered from my newfound fear that a future as my pet would doom any cat to a short life expectancy.

About a month ago, my husband called from work.  He works at a rest home that had a "therapy cat" (i.e. a cat whose purpose is to cheer up sick people).  However, the director of physical therapy and her boss had a tiff which resulted in eviction orders for the innocent animal.  My husband wanted to adopt her; after all, I still hadn't achieved that lifelong goal, the kids would love a pet, and this was one cheap way to achieve that goal, since the pet would come to us with lots of free pet supplies and all its veterinary work accomplished.

Our house is still under construction, but I made the cat her own tranquil bedroom in the closet under the stairs, like Harry Potter.  Soon after adopting her, my husband forgot that the new pet was his idea and complained about her frequently, although I caught him talking baby talk to the sweet kitty when he thought no one was looking.  My children, on the other hand, were exuberant pet owners from the start. My two-year-old was delighted with everything the cat did and brought me frequent, enthusiastic reports, most of which were, "Cat!  Night-night! Cat!"  The first time he saw the cat bathe, he grabbed my arm and dragged me over to see the big event, talking rapid jibberish the whole way.  I told him the cat was bathing.  "Nummy bath?" he asked, having never seen a bath that involved licking before. 

The kids are such exuberant pet owners, in fact, that I am shocked that I have never heard the cat hiss and that she has not clawed either one. She's a good cat.  I hope she isn't terminally ill.

Speaking of which, she came to us with the name, "Callie,"  just like our last doomed cat. I immediately suggested that my daughter rename her.  She is now Lolly, the same name my daughter gives most of her dolls and imaginary friends.

May she have nine very long lives.

When Spousal Indiscretion Serves the Greater Good

There have been many casualties in this brutal war against my unfinished house, but the one I mourned most was the loss of my daughter's baby pictures.

I hate printing.  It kills trees.  And it yields papers, which must be filed.  I hate filing.  So the first year of my daughter's life was recorded only in pixels.  And we talked about backing up those electronic pictures onto a CD or something, but we didn't.

And then our computer, along with a guitar and a video camera, were gone.  This happened before we ran out of money for contractors and we believe one of two things happened:

1.  The construction workers left the door unlocked and a lucky thief happened to notice.

2.  One of the construction workers was a lucky thief.

I cried.  Several times.  Have you seen those commercials where the woman who failed to back up her photos dresses her 9 year-old in his baby clothes in a mad attempt to recreate his baby pictures?  On some desperate occasions, I considered dressing my son (who happens to be a clone of his big sister, if it weren't for his gender) in my daughter's baby dresses to fake some nice mementos.

Fast forward three years.  A couple of weeks ago, my mother-in-law calls with news.  She spent Thanksgiving at her daughter's house and guess what she found there?

Apparently, back when my daughter was a baby, she requested photos of her granddaughter from my husband.  That blessedly lazy man, instead of choosing some nice ones to send her, simply copied off our whole photo album onto a CD and sent it off.  She soon lost the CD, but not until after she had copied it and sent CDs to all of my in-laws.  And one of those in-laws still had it!  A few days later, I got my very own copy of my own photos in the mail!

I was thrilled!  Until I noticed how thorough that album was, and then I was quite embarrassed to realize that all of my in-laws had been privy to these photos.  My sweet hubby had not taken any time to censor the album before copying it.  There were several pictures of myself in a bikini showing off my expanding pregnant belly.  Worse, there were pictures of my daughter (and a not-so-flattering part of myself)  as she entered the world during her vaginal delivery.

Oh well. The humiliation is worth having that lost year of photos back.  Here are some recently recovered highlights from my daughter's first year of life:

Our First Family Photo (my daughter is the one in the ultrasound, 6 weeks gestation)

Within Minutes of Her Birth


My First Mother's Day


Meeting Great Grandma


With Daddy and Grandma


At Her First Parade


No First's Here, but isn't she cute?

Merry Christmas!

Birthday Pics

The angelic face captured through skill and trickery...

His actual expression through most of the session...

On his birthday, Grandma and Grandpa took him and some cousins on a train ride and to a children's museum exhibit. He grinned the whole way. The train was certainly a hit.

His aunt and uncle gave him this cool ride for his birthday. Within about an hour or two of ownership, he was performing daring stunts like this...

Colors and Commitment

I have been painting my basement rec room lately. White. This is a very unusual color choice for me. I like colorful colors. However, the room in question has purple carpet installed by the previous owners and a green sofa inherited from my husband's grandparents that is much nicer than anything we could afford, so we had to go neutral on the walls.

My husband and I put considerable effort into choosing the perfect shade of white. My parents gifted us the services of a professional faux painter to texture and top coat the walls. (She traded them this service for the privilege of using their ideal home for her daughter's wedding.) We consulted with her about color choices that would not clash with the purple and green and would combat the dark, dungeon-like feeling of the basement room and she recommended "ivory," which she described as off-white with a yellowish hue.

We looked at lots of paint samples that were the same color as all the dingy, cinder block, quite dungeon-like student apartments and dorms of my past. We carefully avoided that exact shade, and the result was, well, white. I saw a finished white room on the painter's website, and with her finishing touches, that white room was quite lovely, so I am hoping for a beautiful and not-as-dull final product.

As I painted the white room, I was reminded of a scene from a movie I watched recently, The Accidental Husband. The heroine's boring fiance attempts to engage her in a discussion about paint samples and she tells him they all look the same. "In what sense?" He asks. "In the sense that they are all white," she responds.

Now I am about to give away the end of the movie, but it wasn't a great movie so if you haven't seen it, don't bother. The heroine leaves her fiance at the alter.

As I mused on this topic, I soon thought of several films featuring characters whose apathy toward their romantic partners is manifest as apathy toward paint samples:

(Warning: I liked these flicks, so if you haven't ever seen them, avert your eyes. Although, when you see a character shunning paint samples, you'll know what's up.)

IQ: Because she doesn't care, the heroine randomly points to the color, algea, when her fiance asks her to choose a color for their new home. She dumps him before long.

Juneau: Husband doesn't care what color they paint the nursery. By movie end, he is divorcing his wife and dabbling in pedophilia.

He's just not that into you: Husband barely humors his wife as she muses about paint colors for a new addition at their home. He is in bed with another woman a few scenes later.

Are so many screenwriters telling this story because they can't think of another metaphor for commitment problems? Or have they independantly stumbled on a universal truth?

Just in case, I am relieved that my husband actively participated in finding the perfect shade of white for the rec room.