Haba na haba hujaza kibaba

What, you don't speak Swahili? Okay, neither do I, except for this one phrase, which is the title of a song being learned by the community choir I'm accompanying for. It's a Swahili expression meaning "little by little, until the cup is full." In other words, keep moving forward, no matter how overwhelming the task seems.

Kinda describes wrapping up the semester and getting my house ready to sell. So much to do, so very little time. I know it will get done, because Iowa's where Heavenly Father wants to put me next, but when I think about what needs to happen between now and the end of July, I get a little panicked. So, I focus on doing a little at a time. Baby steps. It worked for the dissertation; it can work now.

First, a picture of my Easter package from my sister-in-law (well, the box):

I got some fun Easter things, but I took this picture because of the little blue cat toy in the front of the photo. The pink one was the cats' Christmas present, and they've chewed it pretty thoroughly. They "hunt" it and bring it to me throughout the day, leave it on my pillow while I'm sleeping, stuff like that. So when the blue one showed up, the cats were VERY happy. They spent the rest of the day taking BOTH toys away from each other (perpetual toddlers) and hiding them/rediscovering them. I guess they were so busy playing that they decided they didn't need to supervise painting tasks.

That was my lame transition to pictures of the second upstairs bedroom. Part of me really wanted to just skip painting, even though I hated the color. Yeah, it was a funky, too-dark shade of olive, but I liked the iris wallpaper border, and to be honest, I didn't want to paint more. But then, I thought: "Wait, this paint probably has lead in it." Then some of it started flaking off, so I HAD to paint for salability of the house. (I think I just made up a word.) Here's the first part of the process, after I'd primed below the wallpaper border:

I should note here that it wasn't really possible to mask the iris border with that blue painter's tape. I had to paint right up to the edge of the irises. I thought that would take forever, but it ended up going fairly quickly, and it was, well, kinda fun. Closest thing to real artsy painting that I'll probably ever do.

Then I got the pale blue paint. I was thinking something along the lines of periwinkle, and as I put the paint on the wall, I thought, "Oh no, too light, too light!" Turns out it wasn't. It was just right. Lookie how it turned out:

I'm very, very pleased. This room's a lot more restful now. Friends had never noticed the iris border before. Now it really shows up.

Next: painting the hallway . . .