flea, yup, I'm in the EXACT SAME situation. It's just that Loki started the shredding for me. Banister takes much more abuse than the trim and doors.

In addition to the vegetable freezing frnzies you have heard about before, my entire childhood was spent with various family members scraping of paint on top of wallpaper on top of paint, and then painting.

My grandfather never did his room, though, and I ended up doing it when I was 25 and moved back home. And then I somehow started pulling the ceiling down with the wallpaper!

My grandma ended up "staining" a lot of the raw wood with shoe polish, so I am not even sure how anyone would fix that.

I met one of my best childhood friends when we were peeling wallpaper from my parent's bedroom and this kid from across the street, wearing in a velvet dress, asked if she could help. My mom sent her home to change first and both the girl (still in the velvet dress) and her mom came back. The mom and my mom formed a tight friendship that lasted their whole lives. And the girl helped peel wallpaper in her velvet dress.

That is adorable, Suzi!

It just came back to me that I thought the chemical they used was called "Stripies", but really it was "Strip- Ease" or maybe "eez"

I love that story, Suzi!

We just got back from our neighborhood Watch meeting at the local police station. It was packed, which is great. I got to hear my husband get a round of applause, as he does all the Watch emails and coordinates all communication with the police. Yes, he rocks.

msbelle, have you seen the latest Geico commercial? [link]

Glad to know I'm not the only person trying to be all organizey today. Dan comes back at 9:15, and so far i have collected ALL the MANY MANY cups from around the house, washed all the dishes (except the ones lolling about in my car), picked up all the toys in the living room, dining room and bathroom (hand to god, 22 tiny toys go in with him in the tub, including a huge Godzilla, but it makes M happy, so whatev.)

The ELEVEN DAMNED BOXES full of Lego and K'Nex parts and toys that were in the living room are now in D's studio, which is a toysplosion, which D gets to deal with, kthx.

I also cleaned the grotty microwave of hot dogsplosions, cleaned all the kitchen counters, changed the cat box, took out all the upstairs trash, took out three bags of garage sale trash. All while posting an ad for tutoring/babysitting/petsitting/errand running services, saving teaching jobs, and creating a Craigslist ad for various stuff in English and Spanish. I still need to go take photos and note all of the brand names, but the majority of the text is done.

The only other things I really, really have to do today is sweep the living room and change the sheets on the bed.

Whew.

Oh, also: WE ARE REFINANCED ON THE HOUSE as of Friday. So, hopefully, things on that front are all taken care of. We are broke like whoa, cause my summer gig's over, but we can haz house.

Thing is, all the trim and doors and everything in the entire damned house are like this. Windows, everything. It is actually a huge pain in the ass, and will be a huge amount of work to fix. Some people should not be allowed to paint things.

My house is the same. Most of the paint sticks, but you can see those alligator patterns in places, and paint is chipping off doors and trim, but the worst is the kitchen cupboards, where paint is constanly flaking off into my plates and cups. I thought of trying to save the cupboards if I ever redo the kitchen, but the thought of stripping those cupboards makes me go gaaaah!

I tried to be organized today. I emptied all three shelves of my spice/baking cabinet. Two shelves worth are back in place but all my spices are still on the counter. I should put them back. I should also get up and cook something. Eventually.

We had BBQ last night, and had a shitton of ribs left over, so I am nibbling on those. NOM NOM NOM.