summer visits 1 & 2

Summer is the time for the week long visits from the grandkids. Now that the grandboy, who turned 18 this year, has a full time job and is a key holding manager to open or close the store, his week has split into two long weekends when he can get them off. Mikey's first long weekend, the last weekend of May, he spent working on his truck which sits, along with all his father's old trucks, in the yard of the shop. He has one foot in adulthood, or maybe hovering above the ground, and one foot still implanted in his childhood. He has a job, is fairly independent, has a plan for the future, he's a good worker but he still lives with his family and is a credit short of having a diploma which he is trying to remedy this summer. He's not grown yet but he's trending that way.

Jade, now 17, was just here for her summer week. Last year she wanted to paint the back bedroom, which is their room when they come to visit, but I wasn't thrilled with the idea. Not that I didn't want it painted, which I did as it was a cold very pale blue white, in fact this whole house was painted that same color when we bought it, but I just wasn't up for the effort as that room is full of furniture and games and craft stuff. This year though she was determined so that is what we did.

The original plan for that room was to be a work room, part of the studio/shop. We pulled up the carpet and got some cheap vinyl for the floor, removed the doors from the closet and moved a big table in there and set it up for wax working and model making. It took a very short time for me to realize that I didn't like working back there. There is only one small window in that room and it is in a corner and the bottom panes are in a clear textured glass that let in light but make it impossible to see out of and I felt very isolated. So the wax working went out to the garage and the model making resumed in the big room that I use as my office and workroom, and so the back room became the guest/craft room.

It took several color samples before I decided on a pale yellow with a warm white for the ceiling and trim with a lavender accent on the end wall of shelves. So the work began...moving furniture to one side or the other, putting down paper and a drop cloth, taping around the baseboards and trim. I painted the ceiling while she worked on the walls. We both worked on the wall of shelves and the trim and while we worked Jade programmed the music. She likes to go through all our old albums when she is here.

She's making a face because she is saying that all my pictures of her are going to be in that dirty paint shirt.

Painting finished, we rearranged the furniture and I put down one of the rugs from the old house that has been stored over at the shop. We didn't finish til almost 6 PM Sunday. It looks great now that it's done and I'm glad that Jade insisted we do it. Next is to hang the closet doors back up. Eventually, I'll move the vinyl over to the shop and put down a wood floor. The only downside to painting the room is that the murals the girls painted in '09 are now gone. I didn't actually regret that until it was too late.

While painting the back bedroom was our only activity (all the stuff from the shelves is piled on the table), we did take time out to go to yoga (and drive home during Bill), do the shops on the square and in Glen Flora where we found these Chinese New Year dragon masks,

put up a ten pound box of peaches from the local orchard, make banana pudding, fruit salad, key lime pie, 

and a pasta salad to complement the meatless meals that Marc made all week. Jade has gone vegetarian.

And right before we left to return her home, she made her dad a Father's Day card.

Jade is turning into an amazing young woman. Well, she's always been amazing. She was inducted into the National Honor Society this year, takes AP classes in school, on the board of her youth group, has a job at a gymnastics gym during the week as a counselor for the summer camp program as well as working birthday parties on the weekends all during the year plus the occasional babysitting job. This is her second summer there. She is a highly motivated organized self starter and if I wasn't doing something fast enough to suit her, she'd take it away from me and do it herself.