We live in one of those disposable houses, you know, a manufactured double-wide. These things aren't meant to be lived in for hundreds of years, like those beautiful old eastern brownstones are. If fact, I will be surprised if this one is still standing in another five.  It was already eighteen years old when we moved into it, but it was occupied by an older couple who didn't do things like punch holes in the bathtub.  (Emily did that.  Fell off the edge backwards and smacked her head on the bottom.  End of tub.  The kid was fine.)  We have lived here less than five years, and in that short time our home has sustained a few injuries.  We have water stains on the living room ceiling, the result of cleaning out the swamp cooler duct with the garden hose.  (That was not our idea.  A friend was "helping".)  The towel racks in the girls' bathroom have been torn out of the walls three or four times. The shower floor is cracked.  That cheap mobile home trim is coming off in several places. The floor vents are loose and bent.

And there is pudding on the kitchen ceiling.   I was handing Emily a bowl of vanilla pudding, and somehow I threw it on the floor.  I don't remember exactly what happened, but my blood sugar was really low, and when that happens I tend to do things with jerky motions.  Anyway, the bowl flipped over and landed right side up, but the pudding was projected in every direction in big thick blobs!  I witnessed almost the entire contents  rain down, each blob landing with a SPLAT, quite the unusual phenomenon.  The refrigerator and cabinets were totally plastered.  The floor had a new finish.  And the ceiling.  I forgot to check it, because really, I didn't expect pudding could fly that far.  Well, when something like that happens, you can either laugh or cry, so after the inital shock (and my temporarily silent children watching to see how Mom is going to react to this disaster), I broke out in a good laugh. The good news is that 1) the kids didn't do it, and 2) it wasn't chocolate (now that would have been a terrible waste, lol!).  The bad news is that the mulititude of yellow ceiling blobs was not discovered until we were on our way out the door for church. So, the pudding wasn't tended to until it was dried and stuck for good on that popcorn texture stuff.  Sigh.  Oh well, like I said, it is a disposable house...

But you know what? I am really thankful for this disposable house.  A museum my home is not, and I wouldn't want it to be. Someday my adult daughters and I will be having a spot of tea together, and we five will reminisce with laughter (and probably resulting tears) the time when Emily put a hole in the tub with her hard head, and the time mom threw pudding at the ceiling.  Emily will say, "Really?!  I don't remember that..." and Alison will say, "Look, Em, right here.  See this yellow stain? and see these spots where Mom had to scrape the popcorn off the ceiling?"  And I will be really glad I laughed at myself.