Winter Is Coming

I think if I spent half as much time on my blog as I do reading others’ blogs, this could be something great, but instead I spend hours upon hours looking at the posts and pictures that everyone else makes.

I find that I take so few pictures of actually interesting things though. I used to, but now…I have pictures that could be titled ‘What the windows look like when the rotting wood was removed’ (see fig. 1), ‘This is what it looks like when you stick the camera in the cistern, and what on earth is that brick wall for?’ (see fig. 2), and ‘This is what the door looked like when I took off the old lock’ (see fig. 3). But do people really want to see those things? I mean, I would if they then told me how they fixed it (which I also have pictures of!) so maybe there are other people out there as crazy as I am?

I do make pretty things sometimes though, and one day the things in those pictures will be pretty (well maybe not the cistern).

I spent all of Saturday and Sunday working on the house. Working on the front windows to get them winter-ready and I painted outside things (windows that didn’t have rotten trim) that needed painted. I also replaced the handle and lock on the back door (so now it had two locks that have keys!  and! I don’t have to knee the door at the point the lock is to get it to lock) which makes me really happy.

I have a whole list of things that need done before winter such as insulate around the windows; insulate and drywall the exterior walls in the utility room; insulate around the circuit box in the kitchen; insulate the incoming water supply to the house; paint the eaves of the house; fix the craft room floor; mortar the fireplace closed; mortar the outside foundation; insulate the inside foundation; install gutters on the backside of the house and stain/seal the fence. I don’t know when I will find the time to do all of those things, but it needs done. September is already booked.

I enjoy this sort of work to a degree-it is satisfying work-when you are done, you feel like you’ve accomplished something and you can see that you have accomplished something.  I don’t plan to do this forever. There will be a day when things are finished enough that I don’t spend every weekend fixing, painting, going to Lowe’s or halfway wondering what kind of a money pit I have gotten myself into.  I do realize that it is a house and there will always, always be something to do, but I also imagine there will be a point where those things could be put off for a weekend and I could do something else instead-something I really enjoy.

In the words of George R.R. Martin though-Winter Is Coming.

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