Coming to a close
All the jobs I talked about in previous blogs are finally coming to a close. We put Jason on the plane yesterday to fly to Auckland and this morning he caught an early flight to Gold Coast. After he left us to visit his father, we continued painting the last bits of the garage, which included the boards and posts on the base, which have never been painted and the woodshed, alongside the garage. It certainly tidies things up. We have used a pinkish colour on both the house and garage as a highlight and I know I still need to add a few strips of this colour to the last areas we painted. Too much unbroken-white looks stark. I have just down-loaded an ap which I will use to try to figure out where to add this highlighting colour.
Another job we did was to replace the leaky joints around the tap. This involved buying a metre-length of alkathene hose, two benders and a tap. We photographed the end of the hose, the hole through the wall and the outside joins to ensure we got enough parts, and took the existing leaky joiners to ensure the correct size. It was far easier trying to explain to the salesman what we wanted with photos, than without. Now, no leaky tap. It is surprising how long one puts up with something, without thinking of fixing it.
Stephen and I sorted through the last of the boxes for storage, creating plenty of room for the car and us to be able to walk around it while in the garage. We have created one more load for the dump, which we will deliver when we have use of a towbar. And then that’s it. The big jobs, that have been hanging over us for the last few years, are now completed. It provides a wonderful feeling of satisfaction.
The garden has been crying out for a weed and the hedge growing, so now I’ll be able to attend to these. It seems that there have been so many jobs that needed doing but we have to remember that I was so unwell for so long and very little was done in this time. And a lot of these jobs aren’t yearly ones, rather 10-to-15-year ones.
Something else I would like to do is more decluttering in the house. We really do have too much stuff. My large collection of crystals takes up quite a bit of space. Perhaps it is time to put some of these in other places. Is that decluttering? Probably not. Our love of garage sales and second-hand shops does not help. We always find something to bring home. In fact, yesterday, we called into a garage sale after dropping Jason off. One thing caught my attention. It was a piece of batik fabric – the colour orange. I couldn’t believe that after writing my blog two days ago about my aversion to orange, that I would be drawn to this piece of fabric. Isn’t that how life works, you throw something out and need it the next day, write about how you dislike something and you see it everywhere, and in this case, I found I didn’t dislike the colour at all. It is beautiful.