Home Depot

Alas, another weekend lost to the pursuit of home improvements. For the second weekend in a row, (or something like that), I was painting in Logan and Dan was plumbing in Syracuse. And I can't recommend trying to do both of those things in separate houses at the same time. Then again, Dan and I are pretty darn used to doing things separately.

We are in the midst of paying the price for being somewhat negligent homeowners over the past few years. All those little fix up projects that you should just stay on top of, but never seem to get around to doing, have all caught up to us, and now that we don't live there anymore, we are suddenly compelled to get the place all fancied up for some stranger who is going to move in and probably beat the crap out of the house. For the past 9 years, we have lived with a disposal that, if you happened to touch the wet kitchen sink when said disposal was running, you would get shocked. As in, electric shock. Did this ever seem safe? No. Was this mentioned a few times through the years? Yes. And now, NOW, it is getting fixed. We are getting new smoke detectors, which we needed for several years. Can't have the renters burning the place down you know. A new window in the laundry room, to replace the one that has been broken for the past three or four years, and which the cats used as a cat door til we taped some card board over it. Fresh paint, clean carpets and totally scrubbed down appliances. I almost want to move back in.

The good news here is that with all these weekends spent in Logan, the kids are getting plenty of time with their friends there. In the middle of all the paint and mess, Audrey had a late birthday party with her old school buddies today, which was bittersweet. Such good friends and good memories, it is hard to leave them behind. I know people say you don't have to leave friends behind, but once you move away, you just don't have as many shared experiences, which tends to naturally limit the friendships. It doesn't happen intentionally, but it does happen.

The other good news is that we are SO CLOSE to being done with the painting. And our plumber buddy was up today, helping Dan with the bathroom, so that is coming along nicely as well.

So, amazingly enough, we are still standing. Propped up a little on each side, and with some aches and pains, but still standing. We live to paint another day.