Take Two, Day Nine, Is This Really Where I am?

Today's agenda will be full of children, birthday preparations for friends, a little house cleaning and other housewife-y stuff. I want to get this down now as I have fallen sadly behind and I do want to keep up with this. As I mentioned on my return, it seems to be greatly beneficial to look at things outside of my own skull (this is a total non-sequitur but I never really though about the fact that I have my own skull. I mean obviously I have one but I have never really thought about how it's all spookily skull shaped under my face, hmmm), so even if this post is pithy and irrelevant I want to build back up to the habit of checking in daily.

I had an interesting talk with GD, and old family friend and BFF of Mama. She was relating how hard life was for her and her kids when she moved from one coast to the other, how things changed for her children, how uncertain and on the edge life was for them. I can completely relate to the way her kids felt, that happened to me every few years. Until we moved to the Bay Area, 6 years was the longest I had ever lived anywhere, and as hard as those 6 years were I clung to them after we left because it was what I knew best. Anyway as we were talking I realized ( as I do over and over again) that everyone is busy overcoming their burdens and obstacles, that from the outside things appear easier because when we are peering in from the outside those burdens aren't sitting on us. We only see the frosting, essentially. As a child it seemed that everything worked out easily for her and her kids, that had their own house, she wasn't dependent on a partner and subject to their whims. I had no idea that her children were angry and resentful about being moved from the home they knew to what was the scary unknown for them. But I should have been able to see that, I knew that feeling so well, I had been moved around so many times, life was so unstable and uncertain. Perhaps that's why I am so afraid that things will be unstable again. Perhaps that is why I am afraid to look my circumstances directly in the eye and see what they have to say for themselves. If I turn away I don't have to confront that fear, I can be like Scarlett O'Hara and save it for tomorrow. Then I don't have to deal with the fear at all, because tomorrow is always just a bit out of reach and out of reality.

Moving on...I declared sometime, early on, in this 8 Weeks blog that I was going to fix up the cottage, and then I walked out on that declaration. I want to go back to that, and think about what needs to be done, what I can do myself and what I need to hire someone to do.

What needs to be done:

• level whole cottage
• roof repaired/replaced 
• windows replaced
• floor repaired
• new carpet
• bathroom redone
• plumbing overhauled
• new deck (back)
• new deck (front)
• kitchen revitalized
• stove repaired
• paint
• new fridge
• new gutters

What I need a professional for:

• level whole cottage
• plumbing overhaul
• new carpet
• stove repaired
• floor repaired

What will get done faster with a professional, but I/we can do ourselves

• windows replaced
• roof repaired/replaced
• new deck (back)
• new deck (front)
• kitchen revitalized 

What I/we can do:

• paint
• new fridge
• new gutters
• bathroom redone

There is plenty I/we can do, I think we need to start with the leveling though, which we can do, by jacking it up and leveling it but I think it would be nice to have an engineer look at it and make sure it is done in a way that makes it structurally sound, not just band aided together. So I will check in with TR and see if he agrees we should start there and then we can start cleaning it out and get it ready for it's do-over!

And now I am off to go make some birthday presents, I am trying to be mindful of finances, as I have a ton of inventory to work with, I will make presents instead of buying them. And as it is only 9:43am, I will say good day instead of goodnight, so Good Day!

Maximum Occupancy met with the cashier and customer pictured, perhaps we should have waited outside!