Saturday Morning Thoughts

It’s been a fruitful and frustrating week. Fruitful because the early garden is finally out. In fact, this morning the peas, spinach and lettuce are up. But we had a loss in the back yard as well. The mulberry tree had to be trimmed back because of damage from last winter’s ice storm. That meant the branches holding the bird feeders had to go. We’ve moved the feeders, but the birds are still confused. A blue jay was sitting on top of the light by the patio this morning looking around as if to say “what’s going on around here?”

We spent Wednesday in Kansas City painting my mothers living room. It took almost as long to drive up and back as it did to paint and put things back in place. It’s amazing how fast some things can be completed and how refreshed a few hours of accomplishment can make you feel.

In contrast, the slow and frustrating has been occuring in one of our bedrooms, the one with the leak. When Corina, our foreign exchange student from Moldova moved into that room, we told her not to look at the ceiling. She didn’t seem to mind as teenage girls don’t seem to be aware of their surroundings other than the computer, television, music cds and the clothing on their bodies. Unless a cute boy happens to walk by, something that certainly wasn’t going to happen in that bedroom. We did have the roof replaced while she was here so that she didn’t have to worry about getting her feet wet when she jumped out of bed, but the ceiling has been in disrepair far too long.

This week, we started ripping. It’s not the first ceiling we’ve taken out. That’s what you buy into when you purchase any house over a hundred years old. And, the ceiling is not what is discouraging. It is the windows. This bedroom was one that had bird nests in the windows when we bought the house. We replaced any broken glass and put on a perfunctory coat of paint after we ripped off the black wall paper, but the windows are still pretty bad looking and will not stay open unless they are propped up. After days of chipping, trying to pry open the top half of the window and pry out the compartment cover for the weights, sanding and priming, we reached the conclusion this morning that replacement windows might not be a bad idea. The windows are too poor a condition to be restored, primarily because of the years when the bad roof offered no protection.

Sounds like the struggle I’ve been having with my weight. I read recently that the average woman over forty can count on gaining a pound a year. Well, I’m certainly average, but not sure I want to accept the additional weight. I think sometimes, just like the difference a good sound roof can make for an old house, a good sound head can make a difference to the rest of our body.