What you say? You are married and have two kids, two jobs (at the time), and you are getting to take a solo trip to Walt Disney World? What??! How in the world did you manage that?

Thanks for asking. It’s a long story I’ll give you the cliff notes. My husband, Matthew, is a missions leader for our church this year in January they decided to do a mission trip to Montana to an Indian Reservation I am not a teepee kind of gal. Matthew is. He wanted to go right off the bat, I jokingly said fine you go and I’ll go to Disney. After our May trip my husband concreted his Montana plans and I still was on the fence. Should I go and spend that money or stay home and save it?

Time out for some back story:

My husband and I bought an older house built in the 50’s after we got married. I love it, actually it’s a house I wanted to live in as a child (my babysitter’s aunt owned it) and I thought it was so cool. Being from the 50’s it has tile up ¾ of the wall in the bathrooms in colors like brown and pale green. When we moved in I knew we couldn’t afford to redo it right away but knew a coat of paint could spruce them up. I started watching HGTV. Way too much HGTV. David Bromstead (a former Disney CM and animator if you didn’t know) from ColorSplash inspired me. My brown tile would look good with orange and a vanilla cream color. We did a big trip to Lowes after we moved in bought paint, new door knobs, etc. I bought some art for the walls and some other accessories like towels and a shower curtain. So a few years ago on 4^th of July my husband had to work, I didn’t. I started watching HGTV. I got inspired that I could re-do our main bathroom completely while my husband was gone to work. In my mind it would work just like the TV show he could come home at quitting time I’d do a big reveal and he would be so impressed with our makeover. I taped up the edges of the room, put down drop cloth, poured out my orange paint and went to town. I painted the whole bathroom in like 2 hours. Then I tried to fix the smudges I got on the ceiling. The pant looked weird. Splotchy kind of. I remember the paint guy at Lowe’s trying to talk me into primer. I’m like nooo I don’t need it my walls are beige. So I think second coat, that’s what it needs. So I wait a bit and start a second coat. It looks worse, its dark orange in some spots, light in others. I think it’s just the lighting in here so I go get another light. Nope it’s the walls. I say ok well let the 2^nd coat dry it will look better it’s just wet. So I try to take the vanity handles off to start to paint them. They get stuck the screws won’t move. I get the electric screwdriver. Nothing not an inch. So I contemplate painting around the handles and having my husband remove them to replace them when he gets home.

  

I take a break, I come back the paint is still splotch. I call my dad. “Umm, daddy why would the paint be splotchy?” Dad: “Did you use primer?” me: “well no dad the walls are beige”. Dad: “well I don’t know then did you try a second coat to even it out” me: “yes”. Dad: “sigh, where is Matthew?” me sheepishly: “at work?” Dad in that dad voice “so you painted your bathroom by yourself and it’s a mess” me: “yup”. Dad: “SIGH, ok I’ll come over”. Me: “Thanks dad I’ll see you in a minute”. So we hang up and I go to take the painters tape off the tile. And it tears. The wall. I’m like what?! The paint peeled a little off. How did this happen? I start flipping out. What is going on? I convince myself it’s just I got too much paint on the tape there and start peeling the rest of. Another chunk comes off. I start looking around, the splotches make sense now. Then a huge piece around the light switch about 7 inches tall comes off. It looks like the wall is peeling and the paint bubbling up. I call dad back “umm dad could my bathroom walls be peeling off”. Dad “wait a second you don’t have wall paper do you?” me: “no dad, its regular walls you know in the brown bathroom”. Then I see IT. A seam in the corner. It’s tiny and blended in well till I painted it orange. Oh crap. “Dad turn around and goes back home I’ll call you back”. I put down the phone and nearly start to hyperventilate. I have ruined my bathroom it’s a mess it looks awful and I’ve painted wall paper. For those of you who may not know you can’t paint regular wall paper with regular paint. It looks like crap. I have pictures to prove it, which I will not be sharing with you guys. I am a wreck, upset that my husband is going to be mad and that I have ruined my bathroom. I worry about it for the next few hours, I do other stuff like frantically clean the house so the rest of the house looks good, I steam cleaned the floors, organized the closet, etc. So my husband comes home that night. I try to break the news gently. I say I have some bad news and take him in there. He starts cracking up. I mean laughing like there ain’t no tomorrow. I of course burst into tears. He calms me down, re assures me it’s ok and that he didn’t know it was wall paper either and that’s that. He has never mentioned it again.

So now my husband is leaving for a week. I am itching to fix another bathroom, redo our master and most importantly knock down the wall between the kitchen and bathroom.  And replace the cabinets. All of my husband’s ‘handy’ friends who I could talk into helping me are going in the trip to Montana with him. But the “what if”  wheels are still turning in my head. Hmmm. I mention it to my husband. How a full week would be plenty of time to re-do the kitchen. His reply “Go to Disney, please just go”.

So that’s ladies is what it takes to get a solo trip to WDW while your husband is out of town. I don’t advocate do it your self-upgrading your bathroom but hey it’s a positive outcome of the disaster. Eventually.

Coming up: My solo summer trip with a good look at Saratoga Springs, reviews of dining from Brown Derby, Cosmic Rays, and others, and how I handled July crowds and beat the heat.