Sleepless Wednesday night

Every so often I find myself having difficulty sleeping. This is "one of those" nights. The body is tired, but the brain won't shut off - we all go through it from time to time.

I thought I had two classes today (mandatory hospital stuff), so I had Dean wake me up when he was leaving for work. Not being sure of the location of the classes, I checked my little pocket calendar and I had written in the classes for Thursday, 2/6; not 2/5. Hmmm..... After checking the online staffing calendar (UMC has that, and it's great!) I found out the room numbers for the classes, and verified that indeed they are scheduled for 2/6! Before all of that I was thinking, "Gee, I would rather stay at home and paint today..." poof! Wish granted! So, with time on my hands I put on my painting clothes and got to work. Dean had left his cell phone at home this morning, and after talking to him we agreed I should 'rescue' him for lunch today. That left me a couple of hours to get started on the ceiling. I managed to do the 'cut work' before picking him up and going for Chinese buffet. By the time I got home I was ready to get back to the task at hand, and rolled the ceiling out in no time! As I've mentioned before, we don't like to advertise products on here - though when we find something that really hits a high note we're not opposed to saying so. I had long been a fan of Ralph Lauren paint. Not because of it's 'designer name', but because it's excellent, one coat coverage, premium quality paint. I bought some Valspar paint last year, for the house in Illinois and was equally impressed with that brand. Here, in Tucson, I've opted to use Valspar paint again. This is the first time using their stock ceiling paint, and it's the coolest stuff! Great one coat coverage, nice and thick (but not too thick) texture, and it has a very pale lavender tint to it - but it dries white! While that may sound silly, here's the advantage.....if you are painting over a white ceiling (or a white primer, as I was doing), that slight tint of lavender is enough to let you see if you've missed a spot while you're painting! Brilliant! Today was the first time that I've painted a ceiling, not missed any spots, and done it in one coat. I'm impressed! I would say that it dries fast, but all paint dries fast in Tucson at this time of year - so I can't really speak to that. The next part of the painting project moved to the walls and "Pale Butter" yellow, flat enamel (for scrubbing durability). This paint is thick stuff - the consistancy of a milkshake, I would say. But, again, that great one coat coverage. I had visions of the schoolbus coming over the hill on Bowles Avenue, when I first opened the can of paint. But, it's a little softer color than that and I'm really liking it now. As with the ceiling, there was cut work to be done. If you aren't familiar with 'cut work', it is when you use a paint brush and go around the top edge of the wall, the bottom edge of the wall, outlets, doorways, and any place the roller can't get to. There are 7 doors in the hallways that are being painted. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening doing cut work! Areas that are too narrow for the roller had to be painted by hand, so that took some extra time as well. I should be rolling the walls that are left to be painted right now - though I would hate to wake Dean up with the lights on, etc. That puts me between steps 10 and 11 in the process of this project. Once the painting part is done then we can move on to the fun part - electricity! Yea!