Growing pains--in the neck

I painted a ceiling yesterday. I don't recommend painting a ceiling. It makes you dizzy and covers your face and hair with itty bitty dots of paint. It hurts your neck and your back. It takes a long time. Heed my advice: don't paint a ceiling if you can avoid it. I, unfortunately, could avoid it no more. The ceiling in question is in our sun room that serves as a play room for the boys. This room has not been painted since before Boogah (that's our nickname and the official Internet codename for our oldest son) was born almost 7 years ago. Since that time, we've had a small leak and some subsequent water damage, which culminated in peeling paint. I have artfully managed to ignore that peeling paint for, oh, a mere three years or so. When the peeling paint started to fall on the play room floor about a year ago, I thought to myself, "I really should fix that or get it fixed." However, I had no idea how one fixes that situation, and we don't have the money to hire a painter. (Not to mention my experience with trying to find contractors and handymen--not successful. But that's a rant for another post.) Not having a solution, I just chose to ostrich it (a.k.a. bury my head in the sand and hope it goes away). I've done a lot of ostriching with things in this house, heck, what am I saying? I ostrich most things in my life. Can we say 'repressed anger over dead-beat dad?' Lately, however, I've been trying to overcome my ostriching ways. I've been trying to make some changes. I'm trying to grow. Basically, I'm on a re-decorating kick. Interior decorating is one of my favorite things. I'm a total HGTV junky. Decorating shows are my crack. No one quite understands my addiction. My husband just shakes his head and walks away, leaving me to enjoy whichever flamboyant male designer has me under his spell at the time. However, just watching the shows is not enough. When I'm feeling especially bored with the humdrum, or I'm jumping out of my skin, needing a change, I start to redecorate. I'm like a molting snake, shedding the old environment, starting over again with something (somewhat) new. If I don't molt, if I don't have change, I become quite unhappy. And since I can't, in this hellish real estate market, sell my house for big bucks and buy a bigger, newer, better one, I change what I can in the one I have. I have a limited budget, so most of my decorating projects are a work in progress. And I don't have much patience, so I usually start on the next project before the previous one is complete. This summer I have redecorated my sitting room/office (which, long ago, was once a tiny dining room) and my dining room (which, long ago, used to be a large, unused formal living room). I've repainted both rooms, hung new window treatments, bought new chairs, recovered the seats of old chairs, bought artwork, re-purposed old artwork, spray painted frames and lamps, etc., etc., etc. And I'm still not done with either room. I have too many ideas spinning in my head and not enough time or money to complete them. Plus, I suddenly decided to stop ostriching the playroom ceiling and repaint and redecorate that room, too. The ceiling is somewhat fixed--another word of advice: spackle is NOT what you use repair a 14 inches worth of peeling, cracking, water damaged ceiling--and it is painted. The walls are painted, too. And I am tired and sore, but I feel good. I feel like I'm slowly updating and transforming this place. I feel like I'm slowly lifting my head out of the sand and shedding an old part of me that I really don't need anymore. I feel like I'm preparing for
fresh, new experiences by refreshing my home. Maybe I'm doing more than fixing a peeling
ceiling. Maybe I'm really fixing me, one room at a time.