Wax on, wax off. (Spray on, spray off.)

You gotta love the Yahoo news stories. Never does a week go by where I haven't read something outrageous, and today did not disappoint. There was an ABC Primetime video about "empty nesters adopting monkeys to raise as surrogate children". The title of that alone was enough to start the chuckling for me. Add in the new word "monkid" (what these folks refer to the monkeys as) and I was a goner, doubling over in fits of laughter. Seriously, if that's what they really needed, I'm sure I could loan my boy out for a couple of hours to satisfy that craving, since it's a well known fact that three-year-old boys are part monkey. (Ah, don't get your panties in a wad. I kid, I kid. About the loaning him out part. I stand by my word that he has got to be part monkey, though.)

Anyway, if you have been secretly nurturing a desire to adopt a monkey as your child, you can apparently catch the news story in its entirety tonight on ABC. (Now that I think about it, I can see a little bit why monkeys might be more appealing than three-year-old boys. They can't talk back, although I would think there could be that definite possibility of poo on the walls, a risk I certainly wouldn't be willing to take.)

Staycation Day #3: today has been a "project" day, deemed so by my husband. He has jumped back into the huge task of repainting our house, a project started last summer and hopefully one that will be finished this summer. Our house is brick, but all of the eaves are wood, along with the trim around each and every window and door, amounting to a crazy amount of painting that must be done. Last summer we (mostly him, although I did do my fair share of trim painting) finished the front of the house and part of one side. This year, we must have screwed our heads on tighter because my husband got the brilliant idea to buy a $39 sprayer today in order to move the project along (at least for painting the big areas). Duh! Let's not talk about what in the heck we were thinking last year when we did every square inch with a brush, Tom Sawyer-style.

Hands off, ladies, this Ralph Macchio is all mine. If I'd only known, as a teenager with a crush on the Karate Kid, someday there would be a Ralph in my life. (What's that you just said under your breath? The Karate Kid look went out in the 80's?)

My job today has been simply to plant my delicate little self in a lawn chair in the shade, sipping lemonade, reading a good summer book, catching up on blogs, perfecting the art of doing nothing, oh, yeah, and watching to make sure that good old Ralph doesn't fall of the ladder. I have, however, been witness to him dropping the big ladder once (missing the window by mere inches) and dropping the paint sprayer and spilling its entire newly refilled contents on the driveway. Mr. Miyagi might need to come help my Ralph Macchio on his technique. I knew I should have had him do a few drills of catching flies with chopsticks and balancing one-legged on tree stumps before he got started! Oh, and there might have been a little mishap of painting almost two whole eaves the wrong shade, done by mistake after accidentally picking up the can of paint in the garage that was the shade we didn't end up using last year (Diplomat Gray instead of Silver Mink) and having a new gallon mixed to match. Oops. His explanation to me at first: "it will dry lighter, don't worry." Ah, yes, right, because we all know (wink, wink) that paint dries lighter, not darker. Ahem. Good thing I am wearing my new and improved "staycation positive attitude" this week. I told him that he can just consider it a good first base coat for when he has to repaint it all. He even added that he was glad he didn't do it all with a brush in the wrong shade. No negative Nancy's here! I'll have you know that I did offer to paint the trim on the windows below while he was up on the ladder, but alas, we are all out of trim paint from last summer, and we have to go to the paint store to get more trim paint. Aw, shucks. Back to the comfy perch with my lemonade for me.

Hark! I think I hear the stirrings of my own little monkey child in his lair, awakening from his long slumber (much improved from yesterday's zero minutes of naptime). Playtime is over, folks. Come back tomorrow for more thrilling tales of my glamorous life and five-star staycation. And remember, if you haven't already done so, leave me something witty in the comments section (on any post this week) to be entered to win my giveaway. I love reading the comments -- and hey, I think I might have more than just 5 or 6 faithful readers out there, maybe even 7 or 8 (wink, wink). Imagine that!