A return to the mundane

It is so nice to have a place to call home once again. But it seems that since we officially moved our belongings into this house, we haven't had the time to just "be" here and enjoy it. First, there was painting to do. Two rooms were completely finished by the time we moved in. And two weeks later, we still only have two rooms completely finished. The dining room is 90% finished, but needs a second coat below the chair rail. But we couldn't get that finished because there were so many boxes stuffed into the dining room you couldn't even see the walls. And now that the boxes have moved out, painting that room seems to have fallen way down on the priority list.


I spent all last week in Pennsylvania with Lois and the Ya-Ya, so we figured Jay would be here alone and have lots of time to get painting and odd jobs done. Right. Well, that didn't happen, but I'm not sure we should beat up on the guy too hard. His commute is killing him, and one day he was stuck in traffic for several hours. The software package he's working on also had it's first release last week and Jay had to work some extra hours to make sure everything was done. So I got a very deluxe and handy spice rack attached to the back of the pantry door, but Lois's room didn't get painted. It got taped off, and all of the furniture was moved to the middle of the room, but no paint was applied to those white walls. This weekend, Andy and the Moo stayed with us while Martha and Scott went to a wedding in Connecticut. So although it was priority number two (right behind mowing the grass), Jay got three quarters of the room cut in - but that's it.


I feel I would be remiss if I didn't mention that my man is a very serious painter. Very cautious. Very deliberate. So in the amount of time it took Jay to cut in three quarters of the room, I probably could have had the entire room painted. I slap the paint on the walls and move on. Yes, paint hits the floor, but that's what a drop cloth is for. Yes, I hit the ceiling and the mouldings quite a bit, but that's what Jay and his touch up brush are for. We are two very different painters. Now keep in mind while this painting process is ongoing, I have no access to Lois's closet, most of her drawers, her changing table, etc. So the kid is sleeping in her pack n' play in the junk room and getting her pants changed on any available surface I can find. But Jay is painting Lois's room - so all I can do is sit back and wring my hands and hope that he gets so tired of this little job hanging over his head that he adopts the Catherine method and starts slapping some paint up there. Sheesh. I love you, Jay - but HURRY UP!!!


In the meantime, there are a thousand little odd jobs that need done around here owing to the fact that the previous owner was a master of deception. Case in point? Our first day here, I leaned over to unroll some TP, and the entire TP holder fell off the wall. It was practically balancing inside two very large holes that were devoid of wall anchors. The day we moved in, the screen door fell off it's hinges. When we hung our clothes up in our new closet, the rod fell off the wall. When I got a shower in our bathroom the first night we were here, the water sprayed up and over the shower door into the floor. Our of three toilets in the house, one is leaking slowly into the floor, the other had a broken flapper chain. Isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard? Most of these little problems have already been taken care of by the resident not-so-handyman. God love him. He's learned a lot about simple home repair since we've been together. He hasn't really had a choice. He even fixed the rather large hole I left in my garage wall back in Christiansburg when I drove in too fast and almost ended up in the laundry room. It would be kind of funny if I hadn't done it repeatedly. Over and over again. My friend A even bought me a sensor that lit up and told me when to stop. I hit it and knocked it off the wall. But that's another story.....

So as soon as all of these little pesky jobs are finished and all of the painting finally gets completed, Jay and I will return to our boring, mundane lives. Which will make us very, very happy.