I am woman, hear me roar

The next leg of my long-haul journey has brought me back to Wichita Falls. My poor mommy has done all the traveling since I've been a resident, so it's my first trip back in a long, long time. But here I am. This will also be my first birthday at home with Mom in a decade! My mission: eat as much birthday cake as possible and plan a bathroom remodel. You see, Nick's (belated) Christmas present to Mom is to re-tile her master bathroom. Therefore, my job is to help her select materials (tile, paint, faucet, etc) before he arrives in a few weeks. Now I love decorating almost as much as I love ruffles, so this truly excites me. The issue: wallpaper. Lots and lots of 1980s blue floral wallpaper. Here is my saga.
The wallpaper doesn't just peel off, it disintegrates after 20 years of daily steam treatments courtesy of the shower. So we head to the Home Depot (Or was it Lowe's? Does it matter?) and get wall-paper stripper and a scraper thingie. This of course does not go as planned. You know how on home improvement shows they always show people complaining about how hard removing wall paper is? Well, the scene just fades to the next day, after a crew of 14 has strained themselves all night to accomplish the task, and voila! Wallpaper has disappeared from sight. This is not reality. But I'll spare you the bitter details and take you straight to my solution. Two words. Power sander. Four hours and a dozen sander pads later, the wallpaper is literally a pile of dust at my feet. I heart power tools. Of course my hair, clothes, and insides were also covered with the ancient gray dust, but it was totally worth it. The texture, primer, and paint are the easy part.
Happy birthday to me. Mom and I are celebrating with Double Dave's pizza and a Margie's Sweet Shop chocolate cake. Next stop, Houston for my Baylor interview. It's been fun Texas, but it's almost time for me to go.