A Little Help from Her Friends.

Miracles can happen. And in our house this week, the miracle workers names were Emily and Marci.

I bought paint for Lauren's bedroom 2 years ago. We moved in and she got the room at the end of the hall with the sailboats painted as a border along the ceiling. Did I want my teenage daughter to have to live with sailboats? No, I did not. I wanted her to spend the last few years in my house with a pretty bedroom. One that reflected her personal tastes. So I bought her paint in a color she really likes. And curtains that matched the paint so that she could have a pretty room.

Two years later she was still living with the sailboats and the spackled walls. This wasn't because she didn't want to have a lovely room but more because she didn't want to have to sort and clean up her belongings and make the room ready to paint. Lauren likes to hold on to things. She is a bit of a pack rat. It causes her stress to have to think about sorting and tossing. It causes her more stress to think about her mother sorting and tossing for her, so the paint has remained in the can and the curtains have never been hung.

But this week, our miracle workers, Emily and Marci, had a sleepover. They stayed up late watching movies and were still asleep when Lauren left the house for a breakfast meeting. They were up before she got back. I asked what they were going to do that day. They said the plan was to paint Lauren's room. (I had been dropping hints to that effect- well, more direct requests than hints- and was thrilled that they had decided to pick up on that.) With very little encouragement on my part, they decided to get started on clearing out her room before she got home. Better them than me!

Lo and behold, by the time Lauren returned, the two girls had filled a couple of bags with trash and had unpacked and sorted boxes that had never been sorted from the move. Emily took a trip down memory lane with the stuff Lauren had from elementary school. Art projects, notebooks, and worksheets. She took it upon herself to ditch most of Lauren's school papers from those years. I think it is wonderful that Lauren had friends willing to do that for her.

Like I said, the paint has been sitting around for a while so it took a lot of shaking and stirring to get it remixed. Then the coat of primer went up to cover the sailboats. Just look at them disappearing into the mist.

A lot more shaking to get the colored paint ready. And then it went up on the wall too. Just look at Lauren, doesn't she look happy to be getting rid of the sailboats?

It took two coats to get the room properly covered and then Lauren and Emily got to enjoy the pretty new blue walls. Don't you love that Lauren is covered in spots of paint and Emily remains spot free? It is not a reflection of who worked hardest just who worked the messiest.

So the room is painted and it is a beautiful periwinkle blue. That was the easy part. Now the stuff has to be moved back out of the guest room and into the bedroom. It might take another miracle to get that done. But Emily is here for 3 more days. It could happen.