Eric was home last week. Hooray! I put him to work:
There are many parts of our house that are in need of some major cosmetic surgery. The house is solid, well-built and all that, but as I've mentioned before, it's freaking hideous. And ambitious folks that we are, we have plans to do the vast majority of cosmetic work ourselves. Translation: it is taking forever to turn God-Awful Ugly into Something More Pleasing To The Eye.
So while Eric was home, one of our major projects was to get the vinyl linoleum off the dining room floor. We were pleasantly surprised at the ease with which it came off. We found some interesting layers underneath, like this piece of real linoleum that looks like a rug, but isn't:
And there were some fragments of orange shag carpeting under the baseboard heater. Nice.
Most of the vinly and linoleum came off pretty easily, leaving only three-point-two billion staples to pull out of the floor. An there was an awful, awful square at the bottom of the stairs where a piece of red linoleum had been stuck down with this nasty black, tar-like stuff.
It took us three hours to clear away the square of tar (Desi pretended to help Eric for a grand total of thirty seconds, which is, of cours, when I got out the camera), and another day to do the first three stairs and landing. Even then, we left some of the black ickiness on one of the stairs because we dangerously close to developing carpal tunnel from all the scraping.
Only thirteen more stairs and the upstairs hall to go before we can strip, sand and start staining.
Let's completely change the subject, shall we? Eric brought an iPod Nano home for me. It's the first iPod I've ever owned, and quite frankly, it's causing problems.
I've never been much of a music freak. Sure, I enjoy music as much as the next person, but I'm no connoisseur of fine music. I'll listen to just about anything, including - *gasp* - the stuff on the radio. So I've never really had a reason to get an iPod.
Then Eric bought me one.
He claimed he'd bought it for me to use on our newly-repaired treadmill. PLEASE NOTE: Eric is not insinuating that there is a pressing need for me to get my recently expanded backside on the treadmill. I asked for a treadmill for my birthday, and he got it. Then I began lamenting the problems I was having with music to accompany the running, so he bought me an iPod. This acquisition of a treadmill and an accompanying iPod proves that he is a wonderful, generous guy who listens when I tell him what I want, not some jerk who sends not-so-subtle hints about the need for me to get my ballooning booty on the treadmill.
Okay, so back to the iPod.
He bought a 1GB one that will basically hold enough music to give me a variety of music to run. Great. Perfect.
So I loaded all of my crappy-but-catchy music onto it. You know, the techno I listened to during my college/raving days, the club music I picked up England, the pop of the likes of - dare I admit this on the Internet?- Kylie, Ricky Martin, the Spice Girls, and other, ah-hem, unmentionables. It's all stuff that I wouldn't call "good", but certainly makes me want to move. This is all fine and dandy. Perfect for running.
Except that I've taken to listening to it when I'm not on the treadmill. In fact, I have yet to actually run on the treadmill since I got all of the music loaded onto the iPod. This is bad. This is very, very bad.
It, perhaps, would not be so bad if I just sat and listened to my crappy music on my own. But anyone who knows me knows that I'm a dancer. And not the classically-trained-and-very-skilled variety (although I was at one point in my distant past, but those days are over). And an iPod full of bad music that makes me want to move, well that just brings out this I've-gotta-dance side of me than cannot be tamed. Observe:
Jenni doing the dishes:
Jenni doing the laundry:
Jenni checking her email:
Checking my freaking email, people! I dance while checking my freaking email!
We all remember this Cingular iTunes commerial, right? The one where the girl is walking along, listing to her music, and her reflection is dancing? Yeah, that's me. Except it's not just my reflection that is dancing. It's all of me. It's more like that "Dude Looks Like A Lady" scene from Mrs. Doubtfire (except I'm a twenty-eight year-old woman dressed like a twenty-eight-year-old woman, not a forty-something man dressed like a sixty-something woman).
This is bad. This is very, very bad. (And yet, I was shamelessly taking pictures of myself while doing this!)
It gets worse.
Most of the windows in our house don't have curtains yet (because my overly-ambitious self wants to custom make them, and I haven't done it). SO OUR NEIGHBORS CAN SEE ME. You'd think the idea of making this display public would phase me. But it doesn't. I unabashedly shake my booty all over our freaking house, sharing this one-man dance party with the world with the entire neighborhood.
But wait, wait! There's more.
I not only dance.
I sing.
And anyone who has ever heard me knows that this is no good. Because I can't sing. Dolores O'Riordan, Bono, Beyonce, even -dare I say it? - Britney Spears: these are people who can sing. Jenni Eaton, attempting to sing along with these aforementioned individuals...mmm, not so much. And by "not so much" I mean "not at all." A cow giving birth. Cats in heat. Fingernails on a chalkboard. These all sound better than my singing. But that does not stop me from belting out the songs at the top of my lungs while I dance around the house.
And all of this dancing and singing has completely ruined my chances of winning this year's Mother of the Year Award. Why, you might ask? Because while all of this singing and dancing is going on, I have the volume on the iPod turned up so ridiculously loud that I can't hear the kids. Rhys had to tap me this afternoon to get my attention, and when I looked up at her, she was sobbing and red because she'd clunked her head against the banister while coming down the stairs. Of course I immediately ripped out the ear buds and was all hugs and kisses for a few minutes. But as soon as she was consoled and happy, I put those little white pieces right back in my ears and jacked up the volume.
I am a terrible person.
But it is so much fun. I'll let you know when if the novelty wears off.
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