How hard is it to get a 20 year old out of your...

What a week!

I have spent the last week packing, sorting, moving and unpacking my dear step daughter and her cousin. That was not all though. Some genius, AKA my step daughter, thought it would be a good idea to completely refinish a dresser three or four days before she moves!

The dresser needed it, I will give her that. It was one of those traditional maple dressers that was popular during the 50’s and 60’s. You might ask how I know this……..because I grew up with the darn hand me downs from my mom! Yes, I grew up with the same darn bedroom set that my mother had as a child.

No problem right? Oh dear reader, are you seeing the pattern that I seem to have started with my articles, I mean posts? 75% of my foibles in life start with the phrase, “How hard could it be?” Well, to start with, the better half lost not only his shirt in his divorce, but ALL of his tools. (Not to mention the house.) So off we go to buy a sander.

Then the dear daughter tells me that she is working all week. Uh, “What do you mean?” I ask. “Could you do it?” ACK!

So starts my adventure in refinishing furniture. Actually, it wasn’t so bad. I got to work out a lot of aggression of having hand me down furniture as a child, sanding up until she bought me the stain that she wanted. It was black. From then on, I was just muttering. “Who stains furniture black?” Never mind, furniture stained and varnished, she can pick out the new handles her darn self!

Then one night she politely knocks on my door and says, “Uh, what does it mean when your PC won’t load?” (notice the politely, she seldom does anything quietly or really, politely) To make a long story short, her motherboard is fried. I am the resident PC fixer, since I used to have a business called “In the Boonies PC Repair”. (It was when I lived in Washington and you have never lived in the boonies until you have lived in a town with a population of 700 people or less)

I am seeing dollar signs, because it is old enough that there is a dilemma, do we throw money into an older PC, or do we just buy her a new one? Luckily, the hefty alimony payment pretty much answers the question for me. We do our best with what we have, besides, she is not a heavy computer user, just MySpace, word processing and email, she doesn‘t need the fastest thing on the block. Of course it is a Dell and a funky compact size, so I have to pay through the nose and buy it direct from them, but it is still cheaper than buying a new PC for her.

You think that this little tale of getting the step daughter out of the house is over, right?

Then there was the strange noise that her car was making…………….

I won’t go there. It is hard to get get kids out of your nest!

There was some good news though this week. While I call her my step daughter, technically she isn’t because, well, her dad was still in a protracted divorce from her mom. We aren’t married. The good news is that the divorce is final! Now, after he gets over the shock of losing his shirt, his house, his retirement and oh yeah, the woman that says that her children can’t live in her house and are not her problem, we can start planning our wedding!

I am thinking Ireland. Wanna come?