Glorious green

Alliteration makes me happy. Blogger's finally working...but I'm holding a grudge.

This entire weekend was spent working on Luciana’s room. We stripped it and repainted the walls. It was time-consuming and unpleasant, but it’s great to be done with it. She picked out the color--pink of course, but not a pastel pink. It's very saturated. I wasn't sure about it when we started, but it looks great! It was sad to wipe out the nursery. She still had the Beatrix Potter nursery that we decorated while I was pregnant. At 8, she has definitely outgrown it, but we were both a little sad to see it all go.

It would have been much quicker and easier had she cleaned her room like she was supposed to have. What we found when we started moving things around and working in there, was that she had stuffed things behind, under, in every single possible place. It looked as though she had cleaned up, until we found the many stashes of crap she had all over. It was infuriating to try to move and work around her piles, but since we were already in process, we just kept going. Now we have the room completely painted, but only half the room is clean and put back together—the half with her bed, so she can sleep in there. We still have to tackle cleaning and putting furniture away in the other half. She will get to pick out new curtains and a throw rug, and we have to get a different bookshelf that will better fit her room, and then we will be done. Then we can get started on re-carpeting the office area in the basement.

I continue to be saddened by the China-Tibet situation. Considering China ’s horribly oppressive policies and violent behavior, I am puzzled and appalled that the Olympics are being held in Beijing . I would like to see the UN pressure them by pulling out of the Olympics. Any participation seems to imply approval of their policies.

Dej is on spring break this week, which means she stays up making a lot of noise late at night (so we can’t get much sleep) then she sleeps half the day. I don’t mind her being up late, but she is incapable of being quiet, so that presents some problems when we still have to get up early and go to work.

Yesterday’s Feast of the Green at work went well. I took my cupcakes in—they turned out really well. The chocolate mint cupcake recipe (from Vegan Cupcakes) was a hit, and L. & H. told me that these are their favorite cupcakes so far. Sarita brought in a delicious Indian chili and nan, so I did end up getting to eat something good. Smelling corned beef and cabbage cooking in crockpots all morning was absolutely disgusting, though!

We had dinner at my parents’ Monday, and my mom got into the spirit by dying her boiled potatoes green. I think it was the first time I have ever had green potatoes!

Other news of excitement, my face is ravaged with eczema right now, making me look like a disgusting leper and it hurts a lot. How very special.

Tuesday is my "late" day at work, but I don't teach this week (yea spring break!!!), so I got to come home at dinner time instead of going straight to class. Mark and Luciana had their traditional St. Patrick's Day celebration (moved to tonight instead of last night, for convenience) going strong. Irish music was blasting, they were sitting at the table carving Irish Springs soap, and his traditional potatoes, hash, sourdough bread meal was cooking. He had the house decorated, too. He started this tradition way back when Dej was young, and it continues on. The girls love it. After the carving of the soap, they always test their soap boats for the best floatability (yeah, Mark, it's a word now). L. can eat potatoes like you wouldn't think possible for a girl of her size.