Seems like everyone I know is having one or another battle to work through.
I've thought about it and wondered why it is like this. My conclusion is
that, it isn't us at all.
Back in the recesses of
our mind is the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, the Twin Towers, Katrina,
the Tsunami, the bombings, the war in Iraq and on and on until our we are
overloaded and on tilt. Still, the old chores are there, so I keep trying to
get the regular things done. However, added to the everyday chores,
suddenly, the reality is that the house, after thirty years, is beginning to
need minor repairs. I make up my mind to finish all these bits and pieces
before winter. Big mistake! You see this puts on pressure. While a person is
scurrying about in a determined frenzy everyone is looking on with an
attitude, “has Mom lost her mind?”
I won't even go into the
scenario with the tile even though it is good for a real belly laugh. My
cousin smiled when she said, “While you were scraping that grout off the
tile were you saying, 'bless you, bless you?”
“Hmmmm, well no not
exactly,” I told her, “No, no, I don't think those were the words I was
thinking.”
Lowe's has mismatched
paint they sell for cheap. A can of paint, of bright colored, cantaloupe was
5.00. Now, this is the high dollar outdoor paint that is guaranteed for
fifteen years. I can't even imagine what this would have cost. My mind could
see the lady's face when they presented that color to her. After I brought
it home, I, too, had second thoughts. Certainly, there was no way I could
use it on the house and had originally thought I might could paint some of
the lawn furniture with it. One day as I was walking up to the back door I
could see the shabby appearance of the porch made that way from not being
painted. Okay! No one is going to see the back of the house, so on goes the
bright cantaloupe colored paint and I love it. With purple and burnt
burgundy, pansies along the flower bed, all at once, what was Tobacco Road
is now a cute, clean, cottage-look.
One would think that,
with being armed by two successes, the tile and the paint job a person would
be joyfully elated and ready to stop. Oh no, not me! I dropped into
Sherman-Williams to browse and guess what? Ends of wallpaper from jobs were
on sale for 2.00 a roll. These were like 36.00 a roll, originally. Well, who
could pass that up? I can see it now, Lucy Arnez would look like a true
master up to what is going to happen to me. Oh well, life is short and
boring if not for the little projects about the homestead.
The greatest laugh I had
though was when my cousin called to tell me she had moved into tribal
housing. I was wondering how she was coping with that so I asked her how she
was doing.
“Oh, I'm all right,” she
sighed. It's okay, and it is cheap. I now can afford to have my telephone
back.”
She coughed once and I
asked, “are you okay?”
“Yeah, oh yeah,” she
wouldn't complain. “It's just all this roach stuff I've been using. If you
don't see me in a few days come check on me. I might be on my back with my
legs in the air while my eyebrows are still twitching.”
“Some people are just
unsinkable,” I decided. |