Color Matching Isn't

So we decided to host a student from Germany for the rest of the school year.  That meant we needed to create a bedroom.  Our office was originally one so it seemed simple to do. Wrong. Would someone please remind me next time that NOTHING is that simple?

We were excited because it was prompting us to tear out the bar cabinets downstairs to turn that area into an office.  The prior owners put those cabinets in.  Nice, but we never used them. Of course, behind and atop the cabinets are a variety of paint colors. And some strips of wallpaper. Ick.  Okay, the walls and the wallpaper I can handle.  But the ceiling?  We tried standard white ceiling paint. It looked white to us! But it made the original paint (in the rest of the HUGE family room) look gray.

So we took a quarter sized scraping and went to match it at Home Depot. It went on fine -- the color matched perfectly. Until it dried. Now it looks gray and the rest of the room looks white.

Sigh.

I decided to run a piece of painters tape along the ceiling in a straight line and paint the new color right up to the line. At least it will look like someone planned the pattern.

Here's what we are tearing out:

It turns out that our cable for our modem runs through the cabinets. It would be easy to fish out except (or course, there's always an except) that the connector for the cable is larger than the holes. One of our friends is an expert in the field so he's going to give us some new cable with a new kind of connector but my husband said, "no problem, end of the week is fine."  Did I mention the student will be joining our family on SATURDAY?

Sigh...so this is what my family room looks like right now:

That's primer on the wall.  Over green paint.  The kind of green paint they used to use in military hospitals.  I believe the color name is "Oh so unattractive."  If you look closely, you can see the difference in ceiling paint. Sigh.

When Good Teens are Bad

One more story of chaperoning.  On Saturday night there was an optional social event.  Of our 28, only 2 wanted to go.  The rest wanted to:

1 -  one group of boys wanted to hang out in the lobby to see if the girls from the other schools would notice them
2 - one group of girls wanted go to the candy store in Colonial Williamsburg, purchase chocolate coins and creme soda and play poker for candy money
3 - one group of boys had planned for the 10th anniversary of the release of the game cube and were prepared with the right equipment to play all night

And they thought they were being so B-A-A-A-A-D.  No drinking, smoking, sneaking out or doing drugs.  Okay, there was probably a little cussing with the gamecube.

And finally, when it was time to corral them, I went down to the lobby to call the last ones home.  It was two boys, on their way back upstairs.  As they were walking towards me one was eating cookies from a bag of Chips Ahoy.  I teased him, "eating again?"

He said, "I can't help it.  These girls gave me these cookies."

I asked, "Do your parents know the effect you have on women?"

He said, "I don't ask them to do it."

All weekend long girls had been sighing when he spoke and giving him their cell phone numbers.

He's 15 years old and one of his parents is from a South American country.  He's charming, has a sweet accent and cute as a bug.

I might need to talk to his mom about his future...

Chaperoning

I'm in Colonial Williamsburg this weekend with 28 really smart, articulate, amazing, exhausting teens.  They're the Model United Nations club from our high school, representing our school as delegates.  MUN conferences have many committees, loosely based on UN committees, along with crisis committees that can vary from fantastical (crisis in Camelot) to historical (Churchill's cabinet in WWII) to real world (Apple Computers management team).  Crisis committees get scenarios sent in to the committee as they role play all weekend.

One of our students is Bombilcar of Ancient Carthage.  One is the CFO of Apple -- now acting CEO.  Some are in the Mexican cabinet dealing with drug wars.  The country we were assigned for all the UN committees is Syria -- and almost no one wants to listen to our kids because the world is mad at Syria.  Our kids LOVE being in that position; it gets their blood flowing.

While they're in committee, the other chaperones and I get to relax, sight-see or, as I did yesterday, geocache.  The campus here is beautiful, and these are photos from it.  Found 2 caches as well.

Unfortunately, one of our girls woke up sick this morning so I'm hanging back with her.  I'm watching old movies on TV and catching up in a way I can't at home. At home, I'd feel compelled to do some laundry or something.  Here, I can't, so I get to catch up on my blog!

It's been a wild 2 months, but we've had great progress.  My mother-in-law's house, finally emptied, went on the market on a Sunday and we were offered full price on Wednesday.  The closing will be Dec 15.  This is great news as the suppressed market is still evident here.  Wow.  This is God at work.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving and be truly thankful in ALL things.