please don't mistake me...

...for someone who does domestic chores easily or happily.  And what brings this up, you might ask?  Me on a step-thingy trying to re-hang the valances in my living room, which is now for all intents and purposes done, I think.  Except for one short stretch of baseboard that somehow missed getting painted.  Details, details.

For related reasons, I'm very glad I am not the one who had the privilege of hanging the new blinds.  Also glad I decided not to spring for the expensive kind.  Turns out every window is slightly different, in spite of them all being the same size windows.  The framing is different in each, making blind-hanging a challenge, each window requiring a slightly different approach and solution.  PITA.

And the a/c finally got installed on Tuesday, a process which consumed 9 hours of two men's time.  It works, and it has a new-fangled thermostat that can be programmed for different times on and off every day of the week.  Nice, but I think I'll generally stick to my usual a/c setting - OFF.  It's simple, and inexpensive.  And it doesn't rile up my sinuses.

So the kitchen is next on the menu.  Yesterday we started in the eating part of the kitchen, and peeled off what was left of the old wallpaper, which is easy in this geographic area, it practically (and occasionally does) comes off the walls all by itself.  Then that part of the room got a first coat of paint - first time it's ever been painted, it always had wallpaper.  The harder half of the kitchen - where the fridge and such need to be moved to get at the walls - is up for next weekend.  And the second coat of paint on the easy part.  Then I get to go shopping for flooring.  It needs to be flexible, the floor is not the flattest surface on the planet.  We shall see what I can find that might work.

Since my new kitchen is presently living on the top of the house - I had to use the money I had set aside to redo the kitchen to replace the roof after Sandy, since my homeowners' insurance won't pay for anything - I'm not doing anything with cabinets and appliances, the old ones will have to suffice until I hit the lottery or something.  Or it can wait for the next owner to rip it all out and redo it.  At this point, I really don't care.

I'm dreadfully tired of giving a damn about this place.  But it looks better, with the new paint and all, and the outside isn't looking too bad, either, now that most (but not all) of the landscape stuff has sort of revived.  I need to take out a couple of smallish evergreen bushes, which apparently don't like swimming in salt water, and I'm concerned about my largish blue spruce, which is still not looking too sprightly, in spite of a good dose of fertilizer a couple of weeks ago.  But even the bamboo is coming back, finally, so there might not be so much planting that needs to be done.  Just the fence and the porches.  The expensive stuff. 

Can I please go live somewhere else now?  Please????