Surviving, part one

I know, I’m horrible. Absolutely horrible, about writing. I’ve been busy, though. Soon you will all be able to see what I’ve been doing. I’ve been working on my roommate’s house. I’ve been working in the basement some, but lately I’ve been working out front. The bushes in front of the house were growing to monstrous proportions, so when Virgin Lion (my roommate) mentioned that we needed to get out there and trim the bushes, I was more than happy to go out there and get them taken care of. It was a beautiful day the day I went out with the hedge trimmer and the hand clippers, and down came the bushes and straggly limbs off the plants on the sides of the house, too. (well, one side got done, the other side isn’t looking too bad, so I let it go, but don’t tell Virgin Lion, okay?) Anyway, the freshly trimmed plant life looks pretty good, and we could actually see the front of the porch! This is a good thing, and a bad thing. Unfortunately, some of the ballusters (posts) on the railing around the porch, have been going bad for a while now. Some of them were totally not even touching at the bottom, due to the dry rot. So, guess what? Once I trimmed the bushes down, we could see the front of the porch! Yes, we could even see the railings, all the way down to the bottom. And some of the ballusters didn’t quite reach the bottom, so guess what Sunshine had to do then?
If you guessed replace the bad ballusters, you are only partially correct. Yes, I did have to replace the bad ballusters, however SunshineGuy, teamed together with Virgin Lion, have to be the overachieving Virgos that we are! Yes, we decided to not only replace ALL of the ballusters, but we upgraded from the plain, boring ballusters, with the turned ballusters, seen on only one other house in the neighborhood, which belongs to the professional homebuilder who built his own house. So we made the quick trip to the local Home Depot store, and purchased the prettier ballusters we’d been dreaming about. Upon arrival at home, I laid out the ballusters all in a row, and set to the daunting task of priming them. Of course I took my time and tried to do the best possible job. (Never let it be said that I don’t have any perfectionism in me) So, after something like 4 hours of painstakingly applying the primer, I was happy to come into the house, because by this time it had turned colder outside, and the garage wasn’t the most comfortable place to be that day. The following day was better, when I went back out to apply the actual paint. For some reason, this job went a lot smoother, and didn’t take as long. Perhaps it is due to the fact that it was warmer and my fingers weren’t stiff, and neither was the paint. (okay, it wasn’t THAT bad, but… LOL) One more day to dry, and they’ll be ready to put up, and beautify the neighborhood!
So, the following day, armed with hammer and screwdrivers, SunshineGuy headed out to tackle the ballusters. Down they come, one by one. After all the ballusters are down, Sunshineguy looks at the rails, top and bottom. Whoever put the original railings up had actually nailed through the top rail, down into the ballusters, so every 5 inches or so, there were at least two nail holes sticking up through the top of the rails. This would require wood filler, after I installed the new ballusters. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the rails were built out of non-treated wood. So, I came into the house, and harrassed Virgin Lion, as she was trying to dutifully continue her work day. When she finally was off the phone for a second, (you have to catch her JUST at the right moment, because her work phone is off the hook ALL DAY LONG!) I dragged her outside, and asked her what she thought, whether we should replace the rails, as well. She agreed that we should do it all if we were doing some of it. So, off to Home Depot drives SunshineGuy. Once all the required items were purchased, guess what was needed to be done? Yup, more priming, waiting, and painting, and waiting. I hated to leave the front porch looking like a toothless mouth, but I really needed to prime and paint the rails as well. Of course, I had to go over to Pink’s house for supper that night, so I was up till all hours of the night, putting that coat of paint on the rails. As if feeling badly about leaving the porch empty for one or two days wasn’t bad enough, the day after staying up till all hours of the night painting, I woke up with a stuffed up head, and feeling like the living dead. I was supposed to have an appointment with the “cable guy” to see if he could get our cable modem working better, but when I finally pried myself out of bed, VirginLion was putting him back out the door, telling him that it was working again. I knew it was working, but wanted to have him check out the missing packets the lady at customer service had mentioned. (of course, the cable wasn’t working at all at that point, so…) I didn’t feel up to calling him back, so when she asked if she should call him back, I just stood on the stairs and said, “no, and I feel like crap, so I am going back to bed.” And I did.
Luckily, I woke up the next day feeling better, at least well enough to get some work done, so I went ahead and assembled the rails in the basement, and took them up and installing them. Funny, assembling the rails and installing them took less time than it took me to paint the rails, I think. But, the rails look good now, if I must say so myself. (oh, but don’t look too close, because the best rails I could find at the local Home Depot store were shaped in an S, or at a minimum, a C! Pink told me that it would have to be my trademark, the S standing for SunshineGuy!)