all the walls in your house (a very boring entry)

The past few weeks have been utterly mad, in that way that isn't really mad, but feels so. And the list of things to do is still not done!!! It keeps getting longer!!! Yet again I'm reminded of my tendency to be a total sook and a complete quitter. Fortunately my mother is Iron Woman who threatens me with early mornings if I don't do what she says immediately. When I point out that I am twenty one and therefore not a child, she gently points out that I am twenty one, still living at home and once again unemployed. And then I do as she says, whilst scouting the job ads.

All this is vaguely humiliating and made worse that it all happened whilst I was wearing an unflattering pair of short shorts, an old shirt three sizes too big and several layers of paint.

We've repainted my room. I wish I had photos to share, but my camera is packed away in a box somewhere, as is my usual computer. It was a mammoth undertaking that began about six months ago, when my mother pointed out (as she does every time she enters my room) that it was a bit of a swamp, with manky walls. I responded that maybe we should paint it, she agreed and then we probably had an argument about my tendency to leave everything everywhere. I should perhaps note that this tendency spawned as a result of my wardrobe door breaking about 8 years ago when I hid in it, for reasons forgotten.

Then I decided (probably drunkenly) that 2010 would be "the year that I did all the things I say I'll do but never get around to doing" starting with revamping my room from its pink and green with white rose trim little girliness. My mother also must have been intoxicated, because we got the ball rolling quite quickly. We had an inspiration trip to Ikea, where I bought the LameLamp and lamented that I couldn't have a sled bed. We traipsed to our local hardware store to pick paint colours, and I decided I wanted barely there colours.

This was a mistake.

Barely there colours used to be the bane of my existence when I worked for Culla Change . North Shore dwellers with their expensive silk shirts would appear at my desk and say "I'm after a colour that's sort of eggshell, but y'know, lighter." or the woman who demanded "Latte" and told me "No, that's not Latte, that's Cappuccino." I thought I had sworn never to become one of those women, until I found myself looking at paint samples. All of the whites had too much yellow in them, the creams were just gross, the pinks looked like pigs innards, red "wouldn't fit with the house" (Nippan do an awesome red called Redcoat that I am going to use one day.) and I knew I didn't want purple. I am not a purple person.

That left me with blue and green. Green was vetoed, because when we moved in here (15 years ago) the walls were sickly green. So that left blue.

I picked Taubmans' Orchid Dew and City Lights. Last Monday Mum and I undercoated my room, which was a giant hassle because I am 147cm and my room is nearly 3500cm high. I sort of had to charge the walls with my paint roller. Then we put the samples on the wall. Orchid Dew looks like a faded purple bruise and City Lights is the colour of London sky when it can't decide if it wants to rain. But you wouldn't think that if you looked at the little cards you get at the paint shop.

Annoyed, we trudged back to the paint shop on Tuesday, where we spent nearly TWO HOURS trying to pick a colour. Most of my choices were made in frustration and shot down, as apparently our 170year old house has a tone that needs to be maintained or the people from the historical society will come beat us with spoons. Curse my parents. Finally I grabbed what looked like a nice pale blue called Chalkdust. As I was charging to the counter, I noticed something called Angora Blue. (I want to be one of the people who names paint colours) which looked like a sort of washed out sky blue. My mother bought me a Mars bar to stop me grizzling, and we went home.

The Chalkdust looked like the London sky does when its just decided to rain because it knows you didn't bring your umbrella. Gross. Angora blue however, would do. It's crisp and fresh and not sodding purple. Mum threw her hands up in relief and went back to the paint shop. I had a nap on the sofa, where I'd slept the past two nights.

I hate sleeping on sofas. People assume I don't mind sofas, because I'm little. But I am, as previously explained, a weird sleeper. I need a little bit of space. Our sofa is kind of narrow. And the back of it curves out slightly. I don't know, its fine for naps during the day, but a whole night is a bit much.

The other part about sleeping on the sofa is Lottie. Little Lottie is not that little anymore, at 18kgs. And every morning, when she's let in, she tears around the kitchen to the lounge room and jumps on the sofa. This is bad. It's also bloody painful when you're fast asleep and a canine cannonball jumps on you and tries to lick your face off. After two mornings like that, I was a bit tired. So naturally, I fell asleep on the sofa. And Lottie jumped on me. And licked my face.

Once we got painting though, it wasn't too bad. Idlewild turns out to be the best music to paint to, even if I had a bit of an embarrassing moment during The Space Between All Things because Roddy Woomble always sounds a bit sneery when he sings "all the walls in your house were painted in deep blue/you're at that indecisive age to choose colours that reflect you." but Mum dripped paint on my head and I got over it.

On Wednesday morning while Lottie was busy sleeping on my stomach, Mum painted my floorboards. Then we went to the theatre, which I've written a post about, but it needs rethinking as I'm probably being too rude about religion. I spent Wednesday night on the sofa again.

Thursday morning we went to Ikea. I'd done my research, and thought we could just pop in and pick up the new wardrobe, table, chair and underbedthingforshoes that I wanted. I reckoned without my mother, who is like a small puppy when presented with stores like Ikea. We left with the things I had wanted, but also a cutlery holder (that is now a pen holder), a wooden plate thing, two packets of napkins, a door mat, two new garbage bins, two storage boxes, a standing mirror and a stuffed toy mouse. I have no idea how that happened.

My silly thinking continued - I was under the impression Ikea furniture would be easy to put together. Mum and Jeremy made jokes about losing the Allen key whilst hauling the stuff upstairs. I tackled the chair, and got half way before cursing the Swedes. Turns out Ikea furniture is not made with Left handed people in mind. By the time we got to putting the table together, I was sent away and told I was useless. The Right Handed people continued without me.

It took until Saturday to get everything together. I'm back in my own bed now, and all that's left to do is paint my bookcases from pink to white and then reorganise my books. There was a lot of shouting, and my room smells a bit like paint. My mother claims I'm going to have to keep everything tidy, and I'm thinking that as good as mother-daughter bonding is, we've had enough to last us the rest of 2010.

And for all my siblings jokes about not losing the Allen key, I have to admit I've got no clue where it is now.