It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to someone painting the bedrooms in the house we may not be owning much longer. But finding a reliable person to paint who gives reasonable estimates and then shows up and paints is not unlike winning the lottery. I contracted with the guy before my husband had entered stage two of the back, i.e. omigod-its-never-going-away-you'll-be-fired-life-is-over.

In our youthful, physically capable days, my husband and I painted, paper, sanded, tore down ceilings, put up paneling, painted paneling, stripped archeological layers of wallpaper and wielded a spackle knife with the best of them. Now we're tired. Old. Worn out. So we jumped at the chance to have a retired painter who was looking to do something to get him out of the house and away from his wife for a few days.

We just didn't know that he like to start work at 7:30 a.m., which actually inched up to 7:11 a.m. by Wednesday. And that he didn't approve of my color choices, especially for the ceiling.

Painter: You gonna paint the ceiling white?
Me: No, a very light yellow.
Painter Yella?
Me: uh-huh
Painter: No, ceilings I painta white.
Me: Normally, but I think yellow is nice because there isn't a lot of wallspace and ----
Painter: Whateva, you the boss

Part of the deal was that we asked him to finish each room before starting the next, especially when he would be painting in the bedrooms. I have little room to move the furniture around in , and we all still have to be able to get into closets and dressers to get ready for school and work, not to mentioi find a spare bed to sleep in. . .

Painter: No problem, you the boss
Me: Can you start with my daughter's room?
Painter: We gonna start in the kitchen, but you the boss.

A day later.

Me: I see you're prepping the bedroom. The kitchen's all done?
Painter: No, I don't wanna use semi-gloss and then switch color and hafta wash brushes, so I do the trim in all the rooms same time.
Me: But then I can't use the kitchen for another two days and we said you'd finish one room...
Painter: Yeah, yeah, don't worry, you the boss. But I do the trim tomorrow.

Then I committed the faux pas of having my daughter's ceiling painted the same color as the walls (light blue).

Painter: The ceiling no good. Look better in white.
Me: The ceiling looks gorgeous! You got it as smooth as glass.
Painter: (Shrugs) Look better in white.

Tonight he is coming over to get paid for half the work. Tomorrow he begins my bedroom, which has a lot of prep work as our ceiling is a mess. On the phone, he tells the husband to make sure that he buys white for the ceiling (figuring he can bypass the crazy wife.) Wait till he sees the pale blue I picked to go with the light green walls.

Of course, being the boss means that I get to move all the furniture from one to another. Not so bad in the kitchen, but then Saturday morning I get that crazy nesting urge and start emptying china cabinets and moving large pieces from room to room. This leaves a gaping hole in the world's smallest living room when my sister drops by and announces that I just have to move my bookcases. I balk, then realize she is completely right and we start emptying shelves and hauling more large pieces of furniture from room to room (which is why I never buy wall to wall carpeting as furniture slides on wood floors and Murphy's oil soap hides scratches).

Revved up by the new arrangement, I get up early and decide that yes, I can move the ugly, huge entertainment center to the far wall if I get an extension for the cable wire. So before my husband can get up and balk, I move it, run down the basement, don't find any cable wire, but find the little oak table we never had room for, clean it, rearrange all the seating and collapse in time to get ready for church. We finally have the ability to sit more than four people in our living room and you can still watch TV if the two people in the arm chairs don't mind craning their necks 90 degrees to the left.

Someday we'll have the money for a new entertainment center, or maybe even some boards and concrete blocks like in the dorm. I am satisfied with my weekend of furniture jigsawing, even if my knees are throbbing and my feet are swollen. I am digging my heels into the house, all too aware of how fragile our hold on it is. I refuse to put my life on hold for the sixth time in as many years.

But I'm the boss. I'm committed to finishing the bedroom painting, and then we're stalled out on home improvements for the time being. So we'll wait for the rest, conserve what little cash we have and try to figure out how to live on 1/3 of our income as it doesn't appear there's any miracles on the horizon. At the very least, we'll clean walls to look at while we fret and stew.