Eighty five percent

I am in Arkansas, my feet propped up on the new coffee table I just helped my mom put together and my belly full of Arkansas-style Chinese food. I am very, very happy.

I have only been home for a few hours, but in many ways it seems like I haven't left because my mom and I fall into such a pattern when I visit. Of course, I have been making fun of her today, so that may not last for long. My mom has been mock-irritated because I joked that she is an 85% redecorator. She gasped and said, "Eighty five percent?! What would make you say that?"

Well, just for the record...
Exhibit A: Sometime in 2004 my mom ripped out the bar that was attached to one wall of the kitchen. She still has not patched the wall. She says you don't notice it because she put a desk over there. Then she breaks out into loud laughter (which I love) and says, "Actually, you don't notice it because all you can see is that the kitchen chairs don't match the new table!"

Exhibit B: The kitchen chairs don't match the new table.

Exhibit C: I am partially to blame for this one. In 2005 I helped my mom choose new colors for the guest room. We chose a cream color and a brownish color, which unfortunately caused the room to be nicknamed the Burrito room. We decided to repaint the brown, and make the entire room cream-colored. However, while I was repainting it, friends came by. I never finished it, and neither did my mom.

Exhibit D: This year my mom knocked out part of the wall separating the living room and dining room. I was against this idea from the beginning, but it turned out to be brilliant. The house is open, very warm and welcoming. However, my mom has still not sanded and patched the damaged parts of the wall around the new large doorway.

Exhibit E: When my mom first moved into the house, she painted her living room and got some of the paint on the windowsill. She has never fixed it. I told her today, "Let's just go pay two bucks for the tester paint and fix that up." Her response was to claim that the error was intentional. (Now she says that this is not true.)

Maybe she'll clean up that big slash of paint on the windowsill sometime, but for now she's focused how the new navy carpet in the living room shows all of her dog Charlie's hairs. I'm typing this post when she says to me, "I'll just have to dye Charlie's hair blue so it won't show up on the rug." Yet another redecorating project...