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comment by g5w
g5w  ·  1321 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: September 9, 2020

House

Well, we finally settled on a color for our house. It is more grey than I prefer, but at least this time it is more blue than my wife prefers. We painted the house a light grey with blue undertones last time and it grated on me. I struggled with painting it last time and basically felt like a two year old fighting it. It took us weeks of nights and weekends to get it done. This time I am energized and we got a quarter of the house painted in a day. I got up early this morning to see it in the early morning light, and wow, I like it. Can't wait to see how it looks over the course of the day as the light changes.

Family

My daughter let us take our grandson for the weekend and we went north to celebrate our mother-in-laws birthday. This will most likely be the last time we see him before they move. We're hoping to get him this weekend, but who knows if my daughter will let us take him. Her anxiety is kicking in. Can't say I blame her, moving a 1000 miles away from everything and everyone she has ever known. That can be stressful for people that don't normally suffer from anxiety.

Wife and I managed to get on the kayaks while visiting family over the weekend (actually, 9 of us went kayaking together) and again Tuesday after work. That makes 6 different lakes in a month. The smallest is just 60 acres, the largest 1,600 acres. My wife is afraid to be on the water where there are motorboats, so we have stuck to smaller bodies of water. Tuesday I convinced her to go on the big lake saying that there would not be many boats on a Tuesday evening. I was right, there were only 3 that we saw. It gave her a chance to experience some small waves from their wake and get more comfortable keeping her balance. It ended up being our longest trip too; we stayed for 2.5 hours. Eventually I hope to get out on the sound, but she isn't anywhere near ready for that. Maybe next summer.

Work

Things keep chugging along. I have always been sucked into various meetings (which I appreciate so that I can have an idea of why they are asking for certain projects). And since I end up touching nearly everything and working with nearly everyone, I have a pretty good overview of how things are and how people do and will react to changes. Someone noticed that a couple of years ago and started inviting me to Senior management meetings. When the pandemic hit, I was invited to join the Strategic Committee meetings. Now am apparently a member? So, I sit on the panel for All Staff meetings and get to meet with the Board of Directors this weekend. I appreciate being noticed, but .... I am running out of time to do my job.

Everyone is happy and healthy, the dog is finally responding to training, the cat hasn't managed to kill anyone yet, we have stable jobs, and so much noticeable progress on the house. Life is Good (c).





mk  ·  1321 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Congrats on the painting. It's exciting how transformative paint can be. I painted our house several years ago, and it was no small task. Are you using a sprayer or brush/roller? I used a brush/roller, and I don't think I'll ever do that again. One side of it is two stories, and I am not a fan of heights. The peak was a sweaty-palm job.

g5w  ·  1321 days ago  ·  link  ·  

We are using brushes for the most part. I don't trust rollers on siding (it is my issue, not the roller's). We painted it in a rush ten years ago. We spent so long scraping the old paint to get down to bare wood on the original part of the house that we ran out of summer. Even worse, on one side of the addition, I assumed the old paint was in better condition than it was and only put on one coat. It faded so bad that the light grey couldn't hide the original white underneath. That is what has really prompted us to repaint.

The addition half of the house is basically three stories in the front, with a hillside that rises alongside the house so that it is only two stories in the back. But, that is the gable/peak side, so trying to paint the peak on a hill three stories up was very hairy. I built a platform to put the ladder on level footing, but it was made of scrap wood and didn't give me much confidence. I will build a better platform this time that will span the whole side of the house.

We dithered on picking a color so long this summer that we are running out of painting weather. I refuse to let that rush me this time. I will get it done, get it done right. I don't want to have to do it again before I can sell it.