Why, Yes, We Do Work with Children

Or, No Neutrals or Earth Tones for Us, Thank You Very Much

I feel like I should be following the current trend and sharing a positive patron interaction anecdote, but I’ve been a bit too preoccupied lately and am too weary from it to have one. I inadvertently took a 75-minute nap, in fact, during my 60-minute dinner break tonight at work. I am worn out. And we haven’t even started moving yet, but have just been doing prep work at the new house. It’s been our goal to get a number of things done before moving in, somewhat because it’s necessary and somewhat because it’s easier with no stuff in the way.

Phase One was the exterior. We took possession last Friday and worked over 12 hours out in the yard. We need to have new fencing put in before we move so the dogs have a secure backyard and don’t wander away. Many of the hours have been prep work toward that end. We started with a friend’s pole chainsaw, cutting down a few of the unnecessary and over-cluttered trees and branches. The place was badly overgrown and in desperate need of a trimming. We hacked away at the jungle, creating one large pile of firewood and another of brush. The ultimate goal besides aesthetics was to dig out one section of the neighbor’s current fence that was overgrown with vines and such so that we could tear it down to make way for our better new one. We did not finish on Friday and had to spend most of Sunday (I worked Saturday) finishing the job. We even wore out the first chainsaw and had to borrow another. After all of the cutting and destruction was done, we had to clean up our mess, rake sticks, and mow the grass. It looks so much nicer now. They started working on the fence today. We also paid our future renters at the old house to treat our large deck on Sunday. The exterior is nearly done and we’re now looking forward to nicer weather when we can relax outside with the dogs and entertain guests out back.

Phase Two has been the interior. Well, painting, really. She started with the basement stairs and one of the bathrooms on Saturday when I was at work and we completed the master bedroom the latter part of Sunday (it was another 12+ hour day). We’ve worked past 10:00 each of the past two nights to add some accent areas to the kitchen and living room and I went in for a few hours this morning before coming to work at noon. She is trying to finish up the last bedroom this evening, then everything will be ready for us to move in. Picking paint when decorating can be a point of contention, but luckily we both like bold, bright, primary colors. Her even more so than me. No neutrals or earth tones for us, thank you. We’ve picked colors with names like grenadine, star command blue, and par four green. The yellow called spiced butternut has probably been our mildest choice this time around. You may scoff, but we think it looks rather nice. We even turned the basement door and the backsplash between our kitchen counter and cabinets into black magnetic chalkboards, an idea I’d previously used in the youth areas at two libraries. We’ll have to be careful about getting chalk dust in our food, but otherwise it should be cool.

Which leaves us almost ready for Phases Three, Four, and Five. The next couple of nights and all day Saturday will have to be devoted to packing the rest of our stuff so that everything is in boxes and ready to move. Sunday is the big day. And next week will begin the unpacking and cluttering of the house we’ve been working so hard to make nice. I’m on vacation, so I might even have a chance to get caught back up on my sleep.