#135 - Laboring with love - October 16, 2012

Tuesday.

Aria got sick last night about midnight.  She didn’t go to school today. 

The rain cleared off in the morning.  I got up early, took out the garbage, burned a ton of cardboard that was overfilling our recycle bin, took the recycle bin out, and worked on reviews.  They were due last week, but I still had a few to do.  I took the kids to the bus while Aria slept.  I got a couple done, then it was time for Katrina and I to learn about my company’s changing benefits plan.

We know which plan we won’t choose, but we’re undecided on which HSA plan will be better for us.  So we have to do some analysis on our family’s likely medical usage and make a choice in the next couple weeks. 

I got home and evicted some woodpeckers from our house.  Katrina noticed a woodpecker pecking at our house a week or so ago.  The hole is large enough for the bird to easily get in and out of.  Today, Aria noticed that the woodpecker was pecking on the sheetrock now, trying to get into the house.  It was time to take action.  She did some research online and found that woodpeckers don’t like tinfoil.  So I took a rolled up pie tin and stuck it in the hole.  While I was up there, I found 2 more woodpecker holes, so I put tin foil in those.  And then we looked around the other corner of the house and found 2 more woodpecker holes.  It appears I have some patching to do. 

Then it was time to clean up leaves.  We have a push broom that I bought when we first moved in to sweep the driveway.  The leaves have been down for a while, and it was time to sweep them off.  So I spent about an hour out there with the push broom and got most of the driveway done.  I had forgotten how wide it actually is.  It was nice to be out there working up a sweat on a cool fall evening.

And I realized that I enjoy working on this house.  Our house in Beaverton was a lot of work to maintain – everything grew with abandon, and it was manicured.  So you would notice if something was untended for a while.  And there was the fact that that house did not feel large enough for us after we’d been in it for a year.  Katrina hated the tile floor in the kitchen, the kids were sharing cramped rooms, and our office was always clogged with stuff. 

This house is different.  I enjoy cutting and hauling wood.  I have enjoyed building the pantry.  I enjoyed taking care of the pool.  Katrina has been working piece by piece to make the house beautiful – 6’ high family trees on the wall, fall decorations on the partial walls around the kitchen, figurines in the display case by the dining table, new lights for the front porch.  She likes this house.  And even though the kitchen floor is tile, we don’t complain about it.  It’s on our list of things to do, just not quite yet. 

I will admit that I don’t like bringing wood inside.  I like cutting, hauling, stacking, and building a fire.  Just not the between part.  I don’t know why.  But living here is a labor of love.  I will trim the bushes back in a few weeks, but I have time to do that.  And I’ll do a million other things, too, as it gets colder outside and I have to turn the focus inside to finish unpacking the house and organizing the basement into usable space.  Much of it is still clogged with boxes that need sorting.

But what a nice day it was.  As evening fell, we ate dinner and I went up to the bedroom instead of watching the debate.  I was hoping that Obama would come out swinging.  But I read the second book in Aria’s series instead.  “Pretties” (by Scott Westerfield) is a better book than the first.  I’ve enjoyed it.  And before I went to sleep, I was nearly done.