blog-header
blog-text

SUBSCRIBE!

Since we're awaiting the inevitable destruction of the earth by the ever-expanding sun, why not join my mailing list?
Something went wrong. Please check your entries and try again.

9 Ways to Make an Extrovert Cry While Painting a Room

image (9)

Here’s a recap of my two days of painting our master bedroom this past Sunday and Monday and what I learned. Tuck these nuggets of wisdom away for when you consider painting on your own, fellow extroverts.

1. First, leave her by herself in the room.

This alone is likely enough to make her cry.  You can skip the next 8 steps if so.
As an extrovert, being with people is almost as important as breathing air. Relationships are life-giving to us as we love connecting and going deep with people. And according to Thought Catalog, the definition of hell for my personality type is being stuck in a room all by myself for eternity. That’s pretty much spot-on. So when I randomly decided to paint our master bedroom the weekend all my perfectionist-painting friends and family were out of town, anxiety immediately began to swallow me.

Me? By myself in a room ALL DAY with no one to talk to??? What does that even mean?!
*insert mild panic attacks here*

image (11)

Let’s not even talk about the struggle of picking out the right color…

2. Have her do something she’s never done before.

Okay, to be clear, I have painted before. Just not by myself. And I didn’t realize until this weekend that I didn’t own any painting supplies. And that’s because my dad has always brought his painting supplies when we’ve needed painting done in our house (thanks, Dad!!). So now this people-loving extrovert has to figure out ON HER OWN what she needs in order to perfectly paint her room?? Sounds simple enough, and maybe it is, but for an anxiety-prone perfectionist, this was equivalent to me packing up and moving to a whole new country with no preparation whatsoever.
*insert full panic mode here*

So what did I do? I became friends with Pat the Paint Lady at the paint store I went to. I explained to her my desperate situation (c’mon guys, you’re talking about an isolated extrovert – that’s desperation to the T… or D… or whatever) and asked her to hook me up with everything I would need, from blue tape to the right brush to basic directions on how to paint a room (I promise I’m not as pathetic as I seem here…). She was the most gracious human ever and DID JUST THAT. I asked her a dozen questions and she kindly and patiently answered each one even though she was swamped with customers due to a huge paint sale they were having. I loved her so much that I asked her if she wanted to skip work and come paint with me (clearly, I need to work on boundaries). She, sadly, turned down my offer (next time, Pat!).

3. Have her be pregnant.

30 weeks pregnant, to be exact. Early enough to have her still forget at times that she’s pregnant, yet far along enough to have her not have full range of motion or view when compared to a non-pregnant lady. The results? Not only an incredibly sore body at the end of the two days, but also running into the edge of our bed within 5(!) minutes of painting and cutting my heel which led to blood on our carpet, which led to squats…. lots of squats.

4. Have her do hundreds of squats.

Did you know if you have a bleeding wound on your heel, you can’t sit on the floor without the risk of getting (more) blood on the carpet? And since I was too impatient (or lazy) to run downstairs to get a band-aid, I kept on painting. But every time I reached the bottom of our wall, instead of  being able to bend over (thank you big belly) or sitting on the floor, I would squat. Squatting spared our carpet of more blood and it saved me the hassle of trying to get up off the floor with my big belly. But when painting a bedroom with 3 (THREE!) coats of paint, you end up doing hundreds of squats. Crying is totally permitted. Which leads me to my next point.

6. Have her be weak.

Like, literally weak. As in, have no muscles. I am seriously the most out-of-shape person within a 10 mile radius of our home. To walk around my block = accomplishment of the week. A walk that takes me 30 minutes. Let’s just pretend I live on a really big block.

So not only am I doing hundreds of squats with a bleeding heel and a rounded abdomen, I’m also having to use what little upper body strength I have to press into my walls because of point 7.

7. Have her bedroom walls be textured.

Seriously, whoever thought walls should have texture should recant their idea asap. Our walls are a knock-down from our popcorn ceilings, and when trying to paint these walls, you can’t just roll your rolling paintbrush thingy up and down the walls. No, you have to press into them. You have to make sure your rolling brush is actually covering all the grooves and bumps in your wall. And if you have no upper body strength like me, it almost looks like you’re wrestling a wall. That’s right; you vs. an immovable object. It’s rough, I tell ya, and in the end, you take a pretty bad beating. My neck, shoulders, and arms are so sore, it’s not even funny. Well, John finds it funny. But, trust me, it’s all pain in there – REAL pain.

8. Have her spouse get sick.

This whole painting gig was based on the premise that John would be able to watch the girls while I worked. John only gets sick once or twice a year, and I tell you, his body picks the most inconvenient times to get sick! (He claims I’d always label his sicknesses as inconvenient no matter the timing but…no, yeah, he’s probably right). So now the girls are randomly running into our room while I’m trying to paint and not cry and be perfect and well, you get the picture. But I did have a mommy moment where I tried to ’embrace the moment’ and let them get their painting on for all of 2 minutes, and that was all I could handle before my stress had reached the ceiling and I was yelling for John to come get the girls.

image (10)

Aww… Eden’s excitement here makes me almost forget the stress of this moment… almost 🙂

9. And lastly, decide to spontaneously sleep-train the kids in the midst of all.

So just in case all that wasn’t enough to get the waterworks going for this mama, we decided we needed to sleep-train our girls due to sleep issues that have been going on for sometime. This *brilliant* idea led to the girls crying and screaming from 1:30-5:00am Sunday night, which meant I didn’t fall asleep until 5:30am, only to be woken up by the girls at 8am. I thought I was GOING.TO.DIE.

So after 2 full days of painting by myself as an extrovert in a small room with textured walls and no bodily muscle and a sick spouse and on 2.5 hours of sleep, you can say I was a sobbing mess by Monday afternoon. Literally sobbing. As in the Sick Hubby is holding the Weeping Wifey while the youngest kid is screaming during nap time and the other kid has taken Sick Hubby’s phone hostage to watch untold hours of screen time just so that I could bawl as I paint and sleep-train and nurture a sick husband.

It was glorious.

Or not.

But we survived. And I swear I will never do that again (as my swollen pregnant feet and ankles will vouch for). I have promised myself I will only paint with another human body in the room, preferably a friend or Pat the Paint Lady.

So there you have it. Nine guaranteed ways to make a pregnant extrovert mama go insane.

You’re welcome. 🙂

 

4 Comments

  1. Andrea on September 13, 2015 at 11:15 pm

    Ohhh mannn… Yeah, not fun. 😛

    Nikole~ I SO wish we lived near each other!!

    • mitchell.nikole@gmail.com on September 14, 2015 at 7:49 pm

      Girl, that’s what I’m sayin!!

  2. Andrea on September 13, 2015 at 11:15 pm

    Ohhh mannn… Yeah, not fun. 😛

    Nikole~ I SO wish we lived near each other!!

    • mitchell.nikole@gmail.com on September 14, 2015 at 7:49 pm

      Girl, that’s what I’m sayin!!

Leave a Comment





Posted in ,