web House updates

Posted July 11, 2008 • Comments Off on House updates

My mail is forwarding. Which is fine now, because today I figured out which mailbox is mine.

Monday I bought a bunch of paint (Behr; to see the colors you have to make an account on the website, but it’s Sabal Palm for the stairs and Mulling Spice and Chai Latte for my bedroom), and the associated detritus, including a Zibra edging tool and a Wagner power roller I’m very excited about.

Today I bought a lawnmower! And then I mowed part of the back lawn! I don’t think I’ve pushed a mower since I was about 13 years old. And this was the first time I’ve used an electric lawnmower. I’ll never go back to a gas one. Wow, is it light and easy and neat. I’m glad I got it. As soon as I can do the front lawn (and I’ll need a weedwhacker and some weed killer too), the place will start to look like a place I can actually live in. Then next year I can plant my own flowers.

I also got a bunch of light bulbs and a bunch (okay, all Home Depot had in stock of the cheap style I liked) of switchplate covers and outlet covers. I need about five more of each to make the whole house match (this is a reasonable desire, right?), but that can wait a while.

Today, after mowing the lawn, I took my first shower in the house! I like my new shower.

Deborah and Angela came over tonight and changed out light bulbs for me. We can’t figure out why some of them won’t light, but I can wait a few days and let David try to suss it out.

All that aside, tonight I did something many years in the making: I sat in my hammock chair. The situation’s not perfect—the carabiner-style hook I got won’t fit through the links of the chain I got, so the loop holding it up right now isn’t permanent enough—but I sat in it and it holds me and it’s lovely. I can’t wait to try it in the daylight.

I think I bought that chair in the early summer of 2000. I certainly didn’t buy it any more recently than that. It’s pre-Schism. Being able to hang it up was one of the major factors driving my house purchase.

On Saturday, we paint. Tomorrow evening, I think I’m going to spot-clean the carpets where I can, buy things at Target like trash bags, toilet-paper holders, shower curtains, bathroom rugs, and wastebaskets, and pull nails out of the walls. That seems like a reasonable amount of things to do.