Cobwebs Gone Awry

So I have this brother. Let's call him Kip. He's incredibly neat & tidy. His expensive shoes are always polished. What's left of his hair is always brilliantly coiffed. Designer jeans. Sweaters. Some might even call him metrosexual. Anyway, I think he's passing his "clean freak"-yness on to his young 3 year old son. And it cost me $190, blood, sweat & tears.

Here's the story. They came to visit at Christmas (my SIL's parents live near here) and were over at our house. Their son (we'll call him Chubberz, for no reason) looks up at the light fixture above our kitchen table and goes "Ewwwww.... Daddy wook! 'Pider webs!" Now what 3 yo boy doesn't like cobwebs? Huh? Kip's son. That's who.

Anyway, at the time I laughed all uncomfortably while looking up and was like "Oh my gosh, Chubberz! There are hardly any spider webs there... geesh!" but on the inside I was like, "Holy crap.... are there a million spiders living in my light fixure? Why have I never noticed these before? That is disgusting!" Outside: Playing it cool. Giving Kip the "Srsly, THIS is how your kid is?" look. Rolling my eyes. Inside: I can't even sit at this table anymore that light fixture is so gross.

Needless to say, the second they leave I get out my handy-dandy Swiffer duster and go to work on the thing. It's one of those types that hang down from the ceiling and have a bowl at the bottom with the lightbulbs inside the bowl. Well, I get up on the table to dust the chain and YUCK!!! a brazillion dead insects were inside the bowl. I don't think I had looked in there since we moved in 2.5 years earlier. I then proceed to figure out how to get the bowl free from the fixture itself. I unscrew a few things, bend a few things and voila, it's out. I rinse it out (while looking away) and put it on the counter to dry.

I then get the fixture completely cobweb free and go get the bowl. The bowl is very large and very heavy. Gty is sitting 10 feet away watching TV. I could ask him for help but for whatever reason I don't feel like I need help. No, I don't WANT help. Afterwards I want to tell him "Look... spic & span and what did you do? Watch TV." But I never got the chance to say that because as I'm attempting to put the bowl back up into its cradle..... I drop it.... and it shatters into one hundred million pieces. I sat there stunned for a few minutes while Gty tried to piece together (pun intended) what happened. My pride got the best of me.

I was so pizzed.

This is what my light fixture has looked like for the past 4 months:



Like a couple of hangers fashioned together with three mismatched lightbulbs dangling in the middle. So ridiculous. I had plans to get a new fixture the next day but, well, you know how that goes. The next day turns into a week, a week into weeks and before you know it, you're used to your "new" light fixture and it doesn't send you into a slight depression every time you look at it. After a while you don't even notice when people come over to your house and are staring quizzically over near the kitchen table.

Then, one day, months down the road, you snap out of it and suddenly you can't handle having this atrocity above your kitchen table even one more day.

You go to Home Depot and after some sweating and cursing (and help from Gty) you have installed this:




Oh my gosh. What a difference. I heart heart heart it. My breath quickens as I enter the kitchen now due to its beauty.



Now I just need to get some curtains made for my kitchen windows and we might actually have a room that is "pleasing to the eye" in there.

With my chandalier installation confidence built up, I decided to put this up in BeeBee's room.



It takes so little to make me happy. I don't know what Gty is talking about. I just go stand in her doorway and smile now.

Home improvement bliss.