Very Slowly but Surely...

We are making little tiny bits of progress.

Very little tiny bits!

This past weekend, the weather was simply perfect. We don’t often see such days here in the Lou—days that are warm, blue-skied and sunny without being miserably hot and humid at the same time. Saturday was Rachel’s graduation day, so we accomplished next to nothing. I can’t say nothing at all because between me, Lauren and the one-armed bandit, we managed to fix the broken water pipe in the upstairs bathroom. Who knew I could be a plumber! Don’t be too impressed—my foray into the plumbing world was helped along by Tony getting his phone up in the giant hole in my kitchen ceiling and taking a picture of the pipe I had to help him fit in. My plumbing repertoire consists of holding a pipe from the underneath while he attached it from above in the bathroom. I have a bruise on my arm to prove it. :) Whatever. The broken pipe is fixed, the bathroom can be used again, but I still have a giant hole in my kitchen ceiling.

 Sunday, while I wanted to spend it painting the hallway and possibly the kitchen, my back was achy and right on the verge of kicking me to the curb, so I decided to supervise some yard work instead. Since we have been concentrating all of our housekeeping efforts indoors lately, the outdoors was sorely neglected and very weed-choked. I’m rather embarrassed to show these photos, but this is what the area in front of my porch looked like before Lauren and I went to work Sunday morning:

 

Why yes, you do see weeds that are taller than the bushes.

YIKES. 

This is what it looks like now, thanks to my girl who helped me dig up/pull weeds, clean up the piles of debris and spread mulch.

 

Lauren did most of the work, but I did pull a few weeds and trim the bushes. Amazing what you do when your husband has a broken arm and is pretty much useless in the yard work department. I’m just thankful I didn’t drop that trimmer and cut my nose off.

 

 

I still have things I need/want to do to get my porch ready for a lot of summer porch sitting, but I bought these ginormous flowers to hang.

 



My yard finally looks cared for and pretty, but oh, I paid dearly for my weekend shenanigans. Monday morning, I woke up to a back that clearly spent the night thinking of ways to torture me and make me miserable.

Seriously? Like I haven’t already moved through Plans A and B, now I have to come up with C? I honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that point.

I did neither and went to work. When I got home that night, I was determined that NO. MATTER. WHAT. I was going to get the hallway painted before I went to bed.

Yeah, that did NOT happen. I really did give it my best effort, but the more I rolled, and bended and stooped and climbed on a chair to do the trim, the more my back screamed at me, “Would you just STOP, you damn fool???”

I finally listened, and by the time I did, I was in so much pain I could barely stand at the sink to clean out my paint brush. I was in so much pain, that I sat down on my dirty, gross kitchen floor and cried. Then, I could barely get up, which made me cry even more. By the time Tony got home, I was on the porch reading, still in tears, and I'm sure he was thinking that I was being a big baby. My back often gives me grief, but it is the first time I have been in tears, and I usually just suck it up and carry on as much as I can. Though the tears were likely out of frustration as much as pain by that point because it seems like we just can’t seem to have anything go our way.

I have cried some more and gone to the chiropractor and regrouped once again. I have done nothing in the house this whole week because I wanted to give my back a chance to heal so it will decide to be nice to me.

So Plan C is this:  This weekend, I am hoping to finish painting the downstairs hallway and paint the kitchen. Then, if all goes well, big, giant IF, I am taking next week off to paint the kitchen cabinets.

In the meantime, I am on the hunt for the perfect shade of green paint for my kitchen. I think I have gathered every green swatch from every store that sells paint in St. Charles. I just can’t decide!

Thankfully, I am still feeling pretty positive most of the time, even if I do shed some tears now and then. I am tired of my dirty house. I am tired of floors that I can't walk on barefoot. I am tired of not being able to find things I need because they are packed away in boxes. But, I am still trying to enjoy this whole process and keep my thoughts focused on how lovely my house will look like when we are finished. If we are ever finished, that is.

I am crossing my fingers that my Plan C is the final plan, and that the next week is smooth and problem free.