Inside and Out

"So you're working on your house …"

That's what the guy two seats up said to me after listening intently to a conversation I'd had with one of my fellow bus riders. (A rider I knew from when I rode the bus every day for a few years.) Because of the threat of severe storms for most of last week, I took to riding the bus again.

I gave a one-word response: Yes.

"What are you working on?"

The temptation to tell him what I am NOT working on was almost too hard to resist, but I managed. Again, a one-word response: Everything. 

And lately, it's true.

Yesterday, for example, we scrubbed the house. This annual event -- usually done in July -- is a pain-staking procedure, in part because the mother has a method and you do not deviate from the method. (The good news is that I was able to go off on my own and run the activity my way while she dealt with other stuff. That's the ONLY reason the house itself got finished.)

Today will be about putting everything, which is now ideally dry, back into place and scrubbing down the few things that didn't get scrubbed when we ran out of daylight. And about mowing. (I tried to tell the mother I should mow FIRST and THEN scrub the house, but … I didn't win the argument.) So, today, I will hear about "the mess" that will inevitably occur when I mow. Sigh.

I snuck in some time one day last week to do a few nip/tucks to the last of the bathroom trim, so ideally, that will go up this week. And then maybe I can focus on ONE thing again for a while.