Creeky, I've agonized over paint colors for ages. I'd already chosen a deep grey blue (SW Distance) for the dining room and master bedroom, and have a lot of grey in the house -- SW Evening Shadow is my main neutral and grey repeats in the kitchen glaze and the charcoal island. I worried that the house would look too cold and stark, but we have a lot of very bright contemporary artwork and tend to use a lot of bright accesssories so I think it will all work. I think the art will look great against the grey. After much deliberation we chose SW Extra White for the trim -- right out of the can. We just loved how crisp and bright it looked with all the blues and greys, and it set off the yellow of my office and the sunroom beautifully. The tinted primer is on the walls, but the final color and the trim isn't painted yet -- but I think we'll like it.

Well yesterday bm played the "I am close with my kids" thing going and called again. Too bad the only one home for her to talk to was ss, who lasted about 30 seconds on the phone with her. He is not a phone person at all. BM wanted to talk to me. Asked where "her girls" were. Said she tried calling their cells first. I told her younger sd was at a sleepover. Older sd was at the movies. Thats probably why they did not answer their cells. Then bm tries being overly friendly with me and attempted to engage me in a conversation about the girls, still pretending that she talks to them all the time. Saying things like "oh I bet __ is out with ___" but she has no clue who her girls friends are so she just made up random names! It was pathetic!! I did not give her the names of their friends, instead I just responded with "they have never been friends with anyone by that name". BM did not comment, probably still pretending in front of people that she regularly speaks to us all! Just makes me sick!! I wanted to scream at her and tell her what a fool she sounded like and that she was fooling nobody! But it would be pointless, so I did not. Well today she headed home and we have not heard from her....not a big surprise. Wonder if her days with family will make her want to be close to her kids, or if the pretending to care is over and done with now. I guess we shall see. Funny thing is if she plans on being all motherly now and making plans with them I am not sure how it will work. The next few weekends the kids are soo busy. Each weekend day one of them has something going on and I know bm would never be able to take them to their practices, meets, and evnets. She can not even show up to pick them up on time. And I know it might sound bad, but if the kids miss any practices or events I want it to be because we had to miss it. They don't get to miss much because of rules and policies so I don't want bm wasting one of their possible absenses just because she is lazy and does not feel like taking them. And ss has made it clear he does not like going there without one of his sisters. So this should be interesting.

I have a huge commercial type rug 6 x 8 that I sat a cardboard box on. There were tools in the box from my last "repair" job I did. Unfortunately, the garage got water in it after the rain and now the cardboard is mushed into the carpet. I got an old metal dust pan to try to pry it up and a million little spiders ran all over the place. Problem is my cats like to sleep there right at the back door. I can't spray poison and I'm not gonna touch that box until all the little spiders are gone. Brown Recluse like nice dark damp places. Any suggestions on this one?

Found another beetle today. I like to tilt the plant while holding a small container of soapy water under it. Because their defense mechanism is to fall, they fall to their deaths into the soapy water once I give the plant a tap. Ha, perhaps I am the natural predator. If the plant can't be tilted, holding a spoon under the beetle is an easy way to catch them too.