Sydney is currently in Amsterdam, and in a few days he’ll head to Boulder, CO, for a month-long seminar. That leaves me in our house with the kids, cats, garden, and a flexible summer schedule. Although I have some demanding research deadlines looming over me, the kids will only be in childcare for a few hours each weekday, so I’ll have the mornings and many weekends and odd days with them at home when I won’t be able to tackle work projects.
In some ways, this is great: I have time in which to play, cook, buy groceries, clean, read to the kids, give Katherine piano lessons, etc. But as Sydney knows, if I’m not kept running absolutely full-out with work and home care, I’ll invent some new project. I only have two modes: overbooked and looking for trouble. It’s rained every day we’ve been home this week, meaning I can’t exhaust myself mowing, so I returned to my goal of painting the bathroom this summer. It’s kind of yellow and most bits of trim are battered, so anything I can do should be an improvement, right?
But I’m very good at demolition, and not so good at construction. I am an obsessive weeder outside, but Sydney is the cultivator. As I washed the bathroom trim in preparation for new white paint, I realized that the grout was dirty. So I wanted to dig that out. Both the grout and the trim, though, will need redoing when we eventually replace the worn linoleum, so maybe I should just rip that out, too, while I’m at it. I peeked under a curling edge and saw hard floor underneath, so how bad could it be?
. . .
Only the thought of having to answer Sydney’s question, “Where did you find money for new tile?” kept me from ripping out the baseboards, flooring, and grout today, since I knew I’d have a month in which to figure out a way to fix it before he got home. And, hey, we do have another bathroom, if this ends up taking forever. But I’m still just learning how to paint, never having done even that before. It may take me a long time to patch up all the errors I’ll make in rehanging towel bars. And the floor project would spill over into late nights, making me tired and unfocused, which means I might miss some important professional deadlines. So, Sydney, the ugly flooring is safe for now (ugh, can I just paint it? or get a big rug?), and I’m dutifully painting the trim that I so nearly pried up with any tool that was handy.
This is why Sydney is nervous: I have almost no practical skills, but an itch for demolition that he’s not here to rein in. Still, I’ve been home for three days and I’ve successfully fought it off once!
Erin
Alan Schmierer