Cooped up and Projects


Things are greening up massively outside, Spring is here. I feel so cooped up though, with little access to the back yard, only through the dark hole like downstairs, which I despise to go through. It was supposed to be our “family room” but has just become a place where I don’t go, it’s dirty and junkier than I can stand. The children go down there and watch TV and spend time there, and just make the couch all dirty and make a general mess. We have things boxed up there too, with no storage in the house to speak of, so it’s a cramped space at best, and there is little light, so it’s a dark hole to me. It’s a concrete floor as well, so I do not care to try to make it seem nice, it just wouldn’t be for me and the baby, no matter what, for now.

One of these days we’ll get a new deck built and the sliding doors in the kitchen, then I will have back yard access again. 🙂 And sometime later hopefully we’ll have a patio by the deck, which the downstairs “hole” will open up out onto, and a new door there as well, to let in more light.

We have indoor projects to get done too though, getting a new floor laid for the main level and completing the floors upstairs (which are partially put in) and then all those floors will need sanded and finished (a true tung oil finish.)

Then getting the kitchen cabinets “installed” and countertops ordered and installed, and more …

There is so much inside that needs done, and outside, including the house needs painted in and out. All these things are big deals, take $$$$ and hard work together, which are not anything I can affect myself, so I feel cooped up. Living with the not yet.

Speaking of that, we are super watchful of the baby since he can crawl and cruise, he’ll be walking anytime now. We have to retrofit the stair areas so that we can install gates. It’s been so long since we had babies to baby proof for, and “back in the day” it was a nightmare getting the stairs “gated” and it just won’t work out this time to try without re-building parts of things.

Baby has to spend more time in his play yard now, which he just ain’t happy about. That’s the price he has to pay though, so he doesn’t tumble down any stairs. It really feels more like MY price to pay, since I have to listen to the wails of “let me out” for 70% of his play yard stays. He’s content to play on the safe floor for awhile, then remembers the stairs to up … and off he powercrawls and starts to climb, and after him I have to go to get him off the stairs. Then it’s play yard time, or sometimes baby swing time, or crib time.

Play yard time is wailing time, but crib time is wailing an screaming time, and oh boy that just never changes. He wants to be with me, free to hold onto me if he wants, not separated at all. He’s so active though, as well, and that makes holding him impossible, even when he seems to want to be held, so it all goes in cycles, hold, put down, play nice, then crawl to stairs, into my arms, too squirmy, into play yard, or swing or crib, cry, cry, cry, or add in screaming, stay there awhile, come out and start it all over again. Getting the stair areas gate-able will really help me out. So that, I think is the one thing we must tackle. It really should cost $ or at the most $$. It’s necessary, but we can’t do it until we have the money to do that, and we are going out of town when we next get paid, and so it’ll be us living with this for another week, then leaving for a few days, then coming back to this and hopefully having the money and energy to tackle the project.

Just that alone will be a reassuring thing, safety is important.


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