Can You Dig It?

Just call me A Mess. After a near- recovery, I've slipped into relapse town. I don't know if this is allergies, viruses, infections, or just generalized internal chaos (great band name by the way) but I'm sick and tired of it. So sick and tired that I've resumed all normal activity - whether I feel like poo or feel like sunshine, I do whatever I normally do. I just have to. That's the bottom line. I can't stay stagnant for weeks on end.

Since the garage doors are in and working and since the remainder of my railings are still on back order, Mike and I have moved forward on other projects. Just last Friday I came home early and painted a lot of the farmer's porch trim and puttied some more nail holes. I still have the front facing, exterior farmer's porch trim to putty and paint - but that will have to wait until Mike sets up the ladder for me. Because I'm petrified of heights. (As my good friend Ryan put it, "I'm not afraid of heights - it's just that 'Woe!' feeling you get when you're on top of the ladder.")

Mike, meanwhile, continues to clean up his mechanical hoarding. Last weekend he gave away a set of rims and a giant tire.

And just this week, we're gearing up for warm sunny weekend weather with a couple projects in mind. Just last night, for example, I tidied the camper in preparation for its departure on Friday. Tonight, Mike will install his brake controller so he can safely tow the thing to our friends' house. (Yes, we share the camper.)

This move will free up the gravel driveway so that Mike can use his skid steere to remove all the rocks and fix the grade. (Out and away from the garage this time!) Once this has been accomplished, we'll order a dump load of loam and have it dumped right in the once-gravel driveway area. And this is because....

Next Sunday the 8th, Mike is borrowing a bigger machine from some friends of his to grade the backyard and spread the loam. (Nothing says Happy Mom's Day more then big machinery....) And I know we previously decided NOT to re-grade... but Mike has the opportunity to borrow the machine for free and we're eager to dig below and cover up any broken glass and debris leftover from last year's vehicle headaches and trash burying of years past. SO, there ya go.

Additionally, Friday or Saturday night, Mike is going to pick up stain and the porch staining machine. (Three non-rainy days in a row? Yup, I'll stain for that.) Tonight and/or tomorrow night, my task will be to clean off the porch in preparation. And hopefully with the machine, it won't take too much time once we get started either.


Stay tuned - this renovation freight train is coming through....

Decisions Decisions

I happened to catch that deepHo commercial last night. You know, the woman paints her room to match her snazzy pink shoes for a party?

At the end of the spot I caught what I was looking for. It's that magical time when HD offers a rebate on paint. $5 off a gallon and $10 off 5 gallons, I believe.

So that kinda puts the nail in the should-i-get-paint coffin. Plus I have that $5 off $50 or more purchase coupon. Wow, double the savings, double the fun - double mint gum.

I hate gum. People stick it everywhere and I step in it or put my hand on it under a desk or a seat by chance. And then they chew it loudly while talking - or pop it. I find it just totally gross. What's the point? Get an altoid if you want fresh breath.

Ok - now that I got that outta my system.

I went out first thing this morning and bought five gallons of a very very very light almost white grey color and one gallon of green called "Patio Green" How ironic!


And then I spent today painting - honestly, I just finished up like an hour and a half ago. I'm exhausted! But the garage looks much improved. Of course I used the white for the body and trim, and the green for the side door, which was formerly that awful blue color that I nicknamed "Thompson Blue" after the previous owners of the home who seemed to love it so much.


I also painted the garage door - which I hadn't planned on doing since we're replacing it sooner or later. But it just looked so horrible. It was just a stain on a beautiful dress... well, not a beautiful dress. More like a comfy t-shirt that's been washed about a zillion times. Anyway, you still don't want a big 'ol stain on it that you can see from the main road. So I painted it. And that makes all the difference when you look at it from afar.

Now all that's left to do is the way-up-high portion of the garage that I can't reach with my famous little blue step stool. This part looks so horrible, it's worse than a stain. It's so bad, it defies all stupid metaphors. The problem - it's not made of wood. It seems like some sort of particle board and it's just falling apart, as you can well imagine. It can barely hold paint.

I primed it about a year ago and it's already back to its previous state of crapness. So, once again, I have to try to scrape all the crapness off of there and re-re paint. I'm not even going to bother with the primer this time because apparently, it doesn't do anything anyway.

Luckily, we still have the borrowed scaffolding we used to take the siding off the house. I'm hoping Mike has time to set it up for me tomorrow morning before he heads off to TJ's house. This way, I'll feel so much safer than being up on stupid ladders. (I'm not too balanced in general, nevermind an extra 6' in the air.)

Then, in the afternoon, I'll hopefully be getting a break for some much anticipated Halloween party planning! I can hardly believe it's nearly time to start putting together invitations again.

For those of you who haven't heard, our Halloween party is the end all be all must be there in costume event of the year! And, as always, I have a huge to-do list of stuff to do around the house before the party. Having the garage out of the way will be a huge relief.