Home Improvement

Back when we were dating, my husband and I agreed to watch each others favorite TV shows. I'm pretty sure the idea was mine. My favorite show is Firefly though, which only ran for one season. My husband's, to his glee, was Home Improvement, which ran for eight seasons. Good grief. Since we made the original deal, we've watched both together and a number of other shows as well. And okay, we might re-watch Firefly as much as one to two times a year. Anyway, watching Home Improvement gave me some interesting ideas for what to expect from our own home improvements. The good news is that it set a really low bar.

Originally, we had planned to spend the fall "finishing" our currently unfinished garage. We decided to set that project aside until later for a number of reasons and then both immediately looked around and started listing off other things we could do. High on my list was our shower. We knew we didn't have the know-how to remove the whole thing and re-do it and, with Thanksgiving approaching, didn't have the patience to try but our caulk and grout was in pretty bad need of repair in some places. I'd like to say we dove into fixing it but our approach more closely resembled a child cautiously dipping their toe in an uncertain lake than anything else. We read articles and watched videos and hemmed and hawed and eventually got to work.

We chose not to do the whole shower both, I believe, feeling pretty sure that we would fail the first time and need to re-do everything anyway. We cut out the worst of the grout though and all of the caulk and, a week later, had a re-caulked and partially re-grouted shower. It's not the prettiest thing in the world but the final product is a lot better than what we started with so I think we'll call this one a win. Of course, in the end, we didn't mess up so badly that we needed to immediately re-do anything so our shower grout is just going to be a little mismatched for a while. It's not the worst thing that could happen.

Hilariously, while our shower was out of commission, we used one of the other bathrooms. Now we have a list of projects to attack in that bathroom. Apparently this is exactly what being a home owner is like.

Before

During

After

Old Things

Marking our sixth move in two years (yes, that's right sixth), my husband and I drove a uhaul of stuff from my parent's home in FL back to TX this past July. Much of what was on board was furniture that they were kind enough to give to us, allowing us to finish furnishing our home. Beds, sheets, towels, dressers, and shelves will turn our previously empty rooms into a place for friends and family.

Then there were the boxes. The boxes that you inherit when you become an adult, live in your own place, and have some elbow room to take on all those pieces of your childhood that you left behind. As I mentioned a while back, I have a special affinity for hand-me-downs, for things that once lovingly belonged to a friend and now belong with me. On this, my husband sits almost diametrically opposed to me. The newer the better. Brand new preferable.

So, as I gush over my old puzzle collection, my many boxes of Legos, and my baby dishes, my husband grumbles, as good-naturedly as he can manage, that we will always be surrounded by old things. He wonders if our children will someday ever have new things even as I lovingly hold baby blankets made for generations of children before me and imagine covering our someday-child with them.

Looking for a way around this stand off, I briefly thought that we should wade through our old things together. Compromise is always easier when we are both involved. The idea never even made it to the table though. As soon as it had formed in my mind, I realized exactly why it wouldn't work. My husband's family left things behind when they immigrated to this country. The baby blankets belonging to great grandparents, the hobby horses, the toys, the hope chests, and the heirlooms, were all left behind for a new country and a new life. My husband doesn't have old, he only has new, and, as much as I want my old things to be our old things, they only tell the history of my family, not his.

I wonder what old things my family once left behind and I wonder where those things are now. It was so long ago though that the whole thing is intangible to me. It's someone else's history that is only very distantly related to mine. I hope that someday both my husband and our children will love the history in those old things but, in the meantime, perspective makes the grumbles and complaints about them easier.

The cat knows how I feel

Blogging recently has been tough. Work has been especially busy and, many days, feels entirely overwhelming. Maybe someday I'll blog about that, but today isn't that day. I'm facing another knee surgery in the not too distant future and, despite knowing that the surgery and recovery will be a lot easier than the last one, it's not a fun or happy prospect. I actually did write a blog about that but decided not to post it for any number of reasons. If you want to read it and don't feel like it will make you squeamish, let me know and I'll email it to you. The election is looming and, while there are so many things I'd like to say about that, I've started and stopped those blogs more times than I can count.

So, what's this not-very-cheerful sounding blog about?

Maybe it's the value of life. Maybe it's me wondering where all this rage is coming from.

It seems like I can't log on to facebook anymore without encountering angry posts and articles. With the exception of my friend's who post pictures of their children and (or) cute animals, it feels like wherever I look there is someone angry about something. Usually I roll my eyes, find a cute kid picture, and try to put whatever unnecessarily mean thing I read out of my mind. As the election draws nearer though, it's getting harder to ignore. I genuinely like reading posts from different political, cultural, and economic views. I seek them out. I have friends with whom I deeply disagree on a broad spectrum of issues but we still love each other, respect each other, and frequently get to have good debates with each other. And then.

And then I read an article from an author who hopes that every member of the opposing political party will die.

I'm not even kidding. My heart rate sped up and I did a double take and then a triple take. How has it come to this?

I can't separate my belief that all life should be respected from my faith but I'd like to believe that, whether a person holds a faith or not, they can respect that life is a precious and wonderful thing. It's fragile and too easily destroyed. There's a lot to be angry about this election season and I know how angry I am personally about things that I feel shouldn't be happening. I still can't imagine ever wishing someone dead over it though because your life is precious whether we agree or not.

When I was in the second grade, a boy in my class started shouting that he hated me. I can't remember what triggered his reaction but my teacher's response has been indelibly ingrained in me ever since. She pulled us both up to her desk and said, very gravely, you do not hate, you do not know what hate is, you never say that to another person again. It was, by far, not the worst experience I can remember from that school but it has defined nearly every bad experience I've had since then. You do not hate.

I think I wish my second grade teacher was here now. I'd like to think she'd be telling people on both sides to stop name calling, to stop saying awful things, to sit down and talk.

Maybe consider doing something nice for someone on November 9th. Donate to a food pantry or a charity. Buy a meal for someone who needs it. Adopt a pet. Send someone flowers. No matter what happens, it seems like there are going to be a lot of upset people next Wednesday morning but it would be awfully nice if everyone could take a deep breath and try to make someone else smile.

PS. If you're not sure what the picture has to do with anything, I chose it because (a) cute animal and (b) the title of this post.