I Run My Household (or Does It Run Me?)

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Ebb and Flow.

Yay! I’ve been productive  at home and I have things to show for it!

Of course, you can’t tell that by looking at my house. It’s  completely trashed  right  now,  what  with  furniture moved all over the place and stuff stacked to the ceiling and other stuff dusty from the repair work. But it’s done. The repairs  are complete.  The damage  from the hurricanes, from the roofers, from the pipe burst and washing machine leak, from the lightning strike back in 1995, the patio replacement  for the  deck that rotted out in 2002, the replacement  for the Pergo floor  we  put in back in

2001 or  so,  the  trellises,  all  done.  Tomorrow,  after  a school thing with Shannon in the morning, I’ll start on moving  furniture  back to where it belongs  and putting things away. I can’t wait! (or maybe I can since I’ll have to move all that furniture myself).

The ceilings are white and bubbly, the floors are gorgeous and non-wood non-leak-and-termite-magnets  and just  the  way  I want it, the  skylight  no longer  has  raw boards sticking out of the ceiling, the light fixtures have been properly wired and the old fans replaced, and various maintenance issues have been handled.

I still need to repair an outside light I forgot about and replace the doorbell with an electric one (preferably that plays “Lucretia My Reflection” or “Kiss Me Deadly” or something similar) but I can probably do both of those myself and they’ve been broken for almost a decade so they can wait a little longer. I have some painting I want to do and lots of yard work, including fixing some sprinklers, some steam-cleaning of the carpets, things like that.

The last thing my repair man did was rewire nine light fixtures and two ceiling fans, all in one afternoon—much cheaper than the last repairman who spent twice as many hours working on just the rewiring of the lights out front. I like being self-sufficient  and doing my own handyman-type work (I’m hearing James Taylor playing in my head here) but I finally had to admit that I needed help, especially  with  replacing  the  heavy  fan  in  the  super-high- ceilinged living room. I just didn’t  have  the upper body strength to stand on a ladder and do it.

Okay. Yes. Fine. You got me there. Right on. It’s true: I needed a man for something. There. Satisfied?

Pshhhhh!