as i lay wasting away

I called out sick today. I don’t like to do that. I will drag my butt to work most of the time even when I’m sick, but there are certain types of ailments where I immediately cry “Uncle” and not go in. Today was one of those things. Besides, the last time I went into work this way, my car ended up being nicknamed the “Vomit Comet” for about a year. It’s a cute story. I’ll tell it to you sometime.

I spent most of my day on the sofa. And thanks to laptop technology, I’m still there. At this rate, I should still be here tomorrow, but I’ll have to drag my sorry butt into work for a few hours to finalize financials.

Enter BvP. Because of some lousy timing, he was lacking vacation time during our vacation 2 weeks ago. Therefore, someone else covered for him. This week, BvP ‘paid back’ the favor and worked ten eleven-hour days straight. That’s 110 hours. I made up a song for him yesterday about it. It’s a cute song. I’ll tell it to you sometime.

I was expecting him to whimper upstairs and crawl into bed for 2 1/2 days. But that was not the case. He came home like a man on fire…high on the endorphins of completing a marathon week. So as I snoozed, he mowed the front and back lawns, cleaned up the front porch, weeded the front garden and trimmed the bushes.

We watched Martha’s Apprentice that we recorded, and I drifted off to sleep again.

Then I hear “BOOM BOOM BOOM CRACK SMASH BOOM!” BvP was knocking the shelves out from our computer room. That’s the next ‘re-do’ room on our list. We did the guest room last year, as you may recall. We figured we may as well get to fixing the rest of the house that we actually LIVE in, since we only have 28.5 years until it’s truly ours. Tick tock.

You may also recall that our house is the house of crazy-ass wallpaper and paneling. And from the lot of hostess photos you know that our computer room is covered in homicide-inducing plaid wallpaper.

As I leaned weakly against the doorframe, BvP ripped off a sheet of the plaid wallpaper. Beneath it..more wallpaper. This we knew. It’s a very kicky 1970’s blue and green flowered print. BvP took off one of the 2×4 that held the now-demolished shelving to the wall. Beneath it…more wallpaper. Okay. Not a shock, really, considering even our CEILINGS have 2 layers of wallpaper.

Then we LOOKED at the wallpaper.

Stumped? So were we. Let’s look at another strip of it.

(hint: the words read “Siege of Yorktown“)

Yes, Virginia, you are looking at Revolutionary War print wallpaper. Our minds were boggled. Could this be called “colonial” style? Was the room originally decorated in muskets and tri-corner hats? And who in their right mind comes out and says, “Yes…I think we should make that room Revolutionary-War themed??”

We’ll hopefully rid the computer room of that wallpaper tomorrow night. Sand/Repair/Paint on Saturday. Lay down some vinyl tile on Sunday. (goodbye, blue shag carpet!)

Back to naps and ginger ale with me. I just had to share those pics.