A fuzzy, dusty blur

My husband is a machine. An obsessive compulsive, attention deficit disorder, insomnia-ridden machine. And when you combine all those traits with his desire to keep his pregnant wife from burning down her house out of sheer insanity, you get a man that spends almost 48 hours straight in a basement priming, painting, spackling (sp?) and sanding to just get this project FINISHED! If I wasn't so thrilled with the results, I might feel a little guilty. However, there were a few things he was working on that were not wife-driven that occupied a large portion of his time, but more on that later.

We went to dinner and an art show with Liza and David on Friday night. We had met previously in the evening at Home Depot and placed our carpet order and FINALLY narrowed down our paint selection to three colors. We purchased samples of all three and some primer and we were set to go. While I was sleeping on Friday night, Rick primed the entire basement and placed the sample colors on the walls. I woke up on Saturday morning, we agreed on the "Light French Gray" and then headed off to BIRTHING CLASS! Woohoo! Yes, amidst all of this, I keep having to remind myself that there is a child coming in a few weeks and we should probably look into caring for this little one at some point. Easy to get distracted these days.

But our eyes were on the prize for about 8 hours on Saturday. We learned all about what to expect when we get to the hospital. Rick learned that we don't need to rush in the second I start with contractions (we all know how he loves to be early), and for a brief second I started thinking I could handle natural child birth. I blame paint fumes for this moment of insanity. Just when I think I couldn't love my husband more after staying up all night painting for me, I got to watch him furiously taking notes, entering milestone dates in his iPhone and his intense focus when learning how to bathe and swaddle a newborn.

Here he's burping the doll. It was absolutely the cutest thing I have ever seen. I felt like my heart was going to burst. I had to channel this emotion later in the weekend.

After baby class, we went straight to Home Depot to pick up more paint and various other supplies. I will take this time to describe Rick's "other project". Long about Thursday of last week, Ricker began to focus on the fact that the original drywall in the stairs going down into the basement had a slightly different texture from the new drywall that had recently been added. The old area has a slightly rough texture and the new was smooth. My solution/observation was that the difference was more significant because they hadn't been painted the same color yet, and that it would be less noticable once paint went up. Rick wasn't having it. Not on his watch. There will be no unmatching walls in his house!

I should have paid more attention to the contents of the basket at Home Depot on this Saturday trip, but again I was blindly accepting that all was under control. There was a huge bag of "quick setting something" that looked a bit technical, but I figured he had a plan and he seemed confident. To show what a team player I am, I donned my protective mask and put up the first coat of paint on about 70% of the basement before my back started to ache. I resigned myself to the bedroom for the evening and left Rick down in the basement for the night.

I awoke at 3:00 am to the sound of sanding. He's got it under control. Sure, he's not sleeping, but he tends to get a bit hyper focused on things like this. No big deal.

I woke up again at 6. Still sanding.

I finally went down at 7 when the sanding stopped, figuring it was finally safe. I noticed a bit of dust around the house, but it was hard to tell if this was drywall dust from earlier in the week or new stuff. Again, no big deal.

I was met at the top of the stairs by someone that was barely recognizable. Rick's eyes were bloodshot, he was covered in a fine white powder and he seemed a little manic. I started to get concerned at this point when he talked of "one more coat" and that he felt he was close. At this point, I figured the train had left the station and there wasn't much I could do but say "Ok" and do what I could to be supportive. To demonstrate that, I even went on a supply run for him (I am a enabling spackle mule now) that morning. This is something I am now regretting. I was asked to pick up something that was different that the material he was using for the first coat. Whatever. I ask no questions. Blind acceptance.

I left to meet some friends for coffee/lunch (I was double booked!) while Rick did whatever he was doing and met his family for lunch. When I came home, he was just about to start sanding down this second coat. I retreated to the bedroom (which is upstairs, he is in the basement) and while checking emails, I started to notice the sensation of film on my face and keyboard. I looked over at my phone, which had been sitting for maybe 30 minutes and it had a fine, white powder all over it. I immediately ran down to shut off the heat/vents and told Rick that there was something going on. He screamed "Viva la revolucion!" and kept sanding (not a direct quote, but captures the essence of Rick at this point). The dust situation downstairs was significantly worse than upstairs and I felt a little ill at this point. But, again, I was told we were close.

At around 4:30 in the afternoon the sanding stopped. Rick emerged from the basement looking like father time on a cocaine bender and proclaimed that he was finally finished and satisfied. I then noticed that he had forgotten to take the entire spice rack (that is about 4 feet high) off the back of the basement door while all this sanding was taking place. Each of the 100-ish little spice bottles had their own little dust mountains on them. Here's where Rick got lucky, because the pre-pregnancy Kaly would have likely flipped ye old insanity switch at this point. However, my long dormant nesting urge kicked in hard core and I got to cleaning spice jars and vacuuming that house for all it was worth.

Doesn't look too bad.....

....but then you pick up the stuff on the table and this is what you are left with.

Because GB had warned me this might happen, I felt she she get a dusty shout-out.

The dust continues to literally and figuratively settle at the house. We still have a ways to go and the offer has been made (and accepted) to bring in professional cleaning people to help with what is left. Rick has learned that sometimes the collateral damage along the way might not be worth the end result and I have learned that blind acceptance is no way to go through a home project. But at the end of it all, I am thankful for a husband that not only wants everything to be perfect for his new family, but is willing to take himself to the brink to make it just so, and that makes my eyes a little watery.

Though it's probably just the dust.