So tomorrow our realtor is coming to our house and putting it on the market. It’s not particularly exciting news, I know, but it is a big thing for us because that means that somehow in the next twenty four hours we have to make this house look like we have walked around in Padded Socks for the past six years and only Gently Tippy-Toed on the carpet. Oddly enough, prospective buyers aren’t terribly interested in carpet that shows evidence of Stomach Virus ’04 or The Time The Dog Was Incontinent.

Go figure.

Also: I have long spoken ill of the flat paint that the builder used in our house. When we moved in the painters left us everything that was leftover, but when I tried to do touch-ups the color was lighter and didn’t look right at all. If I were my mother-in-law I would now say something like, “Well, maybe it was because it wasn’t a very taupe-y taupe, it was just more of a taupe, but not too much grey in it, and if the paint store didn’t mix it just right you might see a little too much yellow in it and it figures that the paint wouldn’t touch up right because I just can’t have anything and you know how every single time I find something I like it doesn’t work right, or it’s discontinued or they don’t have my size because I promise that I don’t try but I’ve lost some weight, I mean I haven’t meant to but it’s just because we’ve been staying busy around here and you know Mother and I don’t eat much, sometimes we just like to split a pimento and cheese sandwich and eat a Pringle.”

Sorry. Sometimes I start to miss Martha and it makes me feel better to talk like her for just a second.

Anyway, you can imagine what parts of my walls look like six years later, especially considering that for the last two a certain little boy has rubbed his sticky little fingers all over them. But I figure that whoever looks at the house won’t think it’s cute that one time Alex stuck his hand in a jar of peanut butter and then “made train tracks” on the walls in the dining room, so I figured I had to come up with a solution.

So this afternoon I marched right into the paint store, showed them the paint chip that I’ve carried around in my wallet for six and a half years, and asked them to mix up a gallon in their cheapest flat paint.

And can I just tell y’all? It worked like a charm. I hit all the high traffic areas, and they look great. You can’t even tell I painted.

So I’m revising my original opinion on flat paint. It seems that I was wrong. Flat paint, when mixed to the correct color specifications, is delightful.

Isn’t this riveting information? All this talk of home improvement?

Coming up in my next post: we’ll be talking about gutters!

When D.’s grandmother, Sissie, fell this past weekend and broke her hip, we were understandably concerned. She’s 96, weighs about 100 pounds soaking wet, and she’s increasingly frail (which makes perfect sense what with her being 96 and 100 pounds and all).

So when we got the news that her surgery to set the hip was scheduled for Sunday morning, D. and his brother, who was here visiting, decided that they’d better head on over so that they could be there. Sissie has managed to combat all manner of ills with little more than a baby aspirin and a multi-vitamin, but surgery for someone her age is Serious Business. So late Saturday night, the brothers headed to Mississippi.

Around 6:45 Sunday morning, D. and Scott went to the hospital so they could see Sissie before she went into surgery. Sissie was very nervous and had taken a “val-yum,” as my mother-in-law Martha says, about thirty minutes beforehand – pretty stiff medication for someone whose idea of heavy pharmaceutical usage is taking two Bayer aspirin within four hours of each other.

So when D. and Scott walked in Sissie’s hospital room, she was, for all intents and purposes, hammered. And when they started talking to her, Sissie’s only reply was, “Where are they, Martha? WHERE ARE THEY?”

Martha explained to Sissie that she should quit looking toward the ceiling in the hopes of seeing her grandsons and should instead look to her left.

Once Sissie was wheeled into the operating room, D. and Scott had the distinct pleasure of listening to Martha talk with her friends Mary Ann and Rubena (I am not making up that name. HOW COULD I?) about all manner of serious issues: the high cost of cable television, the high cost of electrical power, the high cost of gasoline, etc. D. vows that at one point Rubena started a sentence with the phrase, “Speaking of cutting your head off…,” and I really have no idea what she said after that because really, why does it matter in light of such a brilliant segue?

A couple of hours later, Sissie was back in her room. The surgery went well, and – I KID YOU NOT – these were her first words as she came out from under the anesthesia:

“Martha, will you put my lipstick on for me?”

I mean, breaking her hip was one thing. Having surgery to set it was another. But not having color on her lips as she received visitors would be insult to any Southern woman’s injury.

It all makes perfect sense to me.

Y’all know that the level of my blogging addiction is severe enough that I rarely disappear from the computer for two or three days at a time. I mean, really, if there were some way for me to maintain a wireless internet connection at all points in my day – even from the car – I probably would. And I would say things like, “Alex, please don’t interrupt Mama when she’s trying to blog and drive at the same time!”

And people would worry about me. With good reason.

But this past weekend turned out to be busy and full and fun, with little to no computer time. D’s brother and his family were in town, and Alex loved every single second of having his eight year old cousin (and her friend) with him all weekend.

They stayed up until 11:30 Friday night, woke up early Saturday morning, had a great time playing and eating donuts, went to the zoo, went swimming, and pretty much just had a big time. Alex fell asleep at 7:45 Saturday night and did not move a muscle until 8:30 Sunday morning. Big day.

And since D’s brother and sister-in-law took the kids to the zoo and to the pool, D and I had about five hours Saturday afternoon to look at houses. The luxury of that time together was HUGE – it’s amazing how much easier it is to house-hunt when you’re not trying to wrangle a three year old at the same time. Even driving around neighborhoods was simpler – we could actually, you know, talk without being interrupted, and it was a totally unexpected treat to be able to do that. We definitely made some progress in our search…we may have actually found a place where we could live and not only sniff ice cream…but even buy ice cream, too!

I know!

So this week it looks like I’m going to have some projects to do around the house: trying to make it look like we live in a Comfortable Environment, like Alex keeps his toys in Neatly Organized Piles, like we always keep coverlets Artfully Askew at the bottom of all our beds.

It’s a World of Illusion!

Don’t you want to buy it?

Be sure to check out a prayer request over at Blessed Assurances – if you click over you’ll find details of a little guy who really needs our prayers.

Also, D’s grandmother, who’s 96, fell and broke her hip yesterday…she’s having surgery this morning. She hasn’t been in too much pain, but she’s very discouraged and her spirits are low.

And in the praise department, check out Sarah’s post from yesterday if you haven’t already. She and her family got some really encouraging news this past Friday.

I’ll be back later –

1. The Sassy Pants:

Because I AM ALL ABOUT THE BLOGGY SACRIFICE, people, I snapped a picture at an incredibly awkward angle right before choir practice the other night, even though others must have thought me to be slightly insane. What with me taking a picture of my pants leg and all.

And seriously: aren’t they sassy?

2. The Wri- Thing: Yeah, you know, whatever. Emailed one person with “connections.” Doubted myself seven hundred and sixty one times. Regretted emailing connected person and felt very presumptuous. Received two firm but loving and encouraging “talking-tos” from Daph and Laura re: wri- confidence. Vowed to be more proactive. Realized wri- confidence is a helpful prerequisite for “proactivity.” Praying about that. A lot.

Also: overusing “quotations.” “A lot.”

3. I’ve gotten several sweet emails over the last month from people asking if I mind if they plan some sort of “tour” for their blog. I think people probably don’t want to use the tour idea without my permission, which is really kind and thoughtful but TOTALLY unnecessary.

So let me just say this: if you want to plan a Tour of Faucets, a Tour of Master Bathrooms With Double Sinks, a Tour of Basements, whatever – HAVE AT IT. :-) Seriously. I would’ve never done Tour of Homes if Shannon and Carol hadn’t suggested it to me, so feel free to TOUR IT UP on your own blogs if you want.

Which reminds me: I’m waivering about doing the Christmas Tour of Homes, because I think that people could probably use a break from Bloggity Extravaganzas that involve me (like I told Chilihead: since I’m sort of sick of me, I can’t imagine that everyone else isn’t, too). I’ll try to decide something for sure in the next few weeks. I guess I’m sort of wondering if it wouldn’t be one more obligation for people during an already busy time of year? I’d love your feedback….

4. D’s going out of town in a couple of weeks. I’m relaying this information because a) I want prowlers to have plenty of advance notice and b) I want to make an announcement.

So here it is: I’m going to TRY to watch this thing they call “Grey’s Anatomy” while he’s gone. Yep, I’m gonna jump right up on the bandwagon even though it goes against my longstanding no-bandwagon-jumping TV watching principle. HAPPY, DAPHNE AND ADDIE?

5. And in the completely unrelated department (not that this post is the model of narrative coherence or anything): is it possible to freeze salsa? If so, in what kind of container?

Thank you for your time. Have a lovely weekend.

So I got home from a little Mama-party tonight (it was WILD, I tell you – we ooh’d and aah’d over cooking utensils and then drank way too much ginger ale with raspberries while we perused catalogs with even more cooking utensils – WILD!) and visited with the family and got Alex tucked into bed and then came downstairs to check Bloglines.

And there were maybe two new posts as opposed to the normal eleventy hundred new posts.

And I thought, well, um, that’s strange.

But then I remembered: Grey’s Anatomy. Season premiere.

Now I don’t watch the show [she says, ducking for cover], but I have a newfound appreciation for it because Cutie McPretty or Dr. McDreamy or whatever his name is can flat shut down blogland for a couple of hours. THAT’S impressive. Really. I believe I have badly underestimated the loyalty and fervor that you people have for this seemingly-addictive television program that I have never seen.

So I hope you enjoyed it.

In other television news, D and I enjoyed “The Office” season premiere tonight. At least I did until I got on the phone with Merritt and quit watching. But then she made me laugh so hard that I wet my pants. And I enjoyed that, too (the laughing. not so much the other).

See y’all tomorrow.