My Life as a Novel

For my whole life, my dad has worked in plants and mills in very "blue-collar" jobs. The lingo I've picked up from him is that when he does his job correctly (keeping machines running), "productivity" is up and that's great for the whole company. Basically, my dad is the hero of Mead WestVaCo these days -- and Georgia Pacific before that. Or at least that's what I like to think. :)

Productivity is definitely up at the Polk house these days. I was talking to Kyle's mom this morning and I told her that I finally feel like we're adults in a house and not a couple of kids who have no idea what they're doing owning a home.

Let me not fool you. We still have no idea what we're doing. We're just getting better at figuring out who to go to when we have questions.

This series of much-needed home-improvement started last November when our roof finally got the attention it required. (Don't know if I've said thank you to the right people enough for that. Don't know if I could.) So when spring rolled around, we got the outside of the house pressure washed and painted. And the difference was amazing!! One last step (the front door) and the painting will be finished, and the outside of the actual house will be finished.

So we turned our attention to the yard shortly thereafter. We trimmed a tree. I planted flowers. Kyle cut back all the azaleas and other shrubbery in the front yard. And now all I have left to do is finish digging weeds (for the 76,135th time) and mulch. And that's happening tonight. And there's talk of a mailbox. We'll see what happens.

On Saturday, we went to Home Depot. (sings: "Thank you, George Bush, for the stimulus package money that you gave me" to the tune of Thank You, Jack White.) We got some new blinds for the dining room/kitchen/living room on Saturday. And we hung them and dusted the window sills better than they'd been dusted in a while. And tonight my dad's coming over to help Kyle replace a broken ceiling fan/light. We've replaced light fixtures before, but the wiring in a ceiling fan is a bit different. Plus, my dad likes to help out. So why not let him?

It may not be painting an entire house in a week by yourself, but it's productivity. And I like it.

Labels: home, Work in Progress