Home Repairs: Bad News & Good News

September 6, 2018 by JoAnna 40 Comments

We got so much rain in July, I almost took the kayak out for a paddle in our backyard.

The monsoons delivered bad news in the form water seeping into our bathroom where the wall meets the tub. I knew we needed a new bathroom floor because of the soft spots.  The house was built in the 1940s and is way overdue for some updates. So, I’m going to get a whole new bathroom with a WINDOW which I’ve wanted for a long time – ever since the hurricane when we lost electricity (notice I didn’t write power) for ten days in the summer and had to take candles into the hot bathroom. Now, I’ll have some natural light in the bathroom! We’re also getting a metal roof. That’s the good news.

The bad news is we only have one bathroom. That by itself has not been an issue. I’ve lived most of my life with one bathroom – a condition that teaches patience, planning, and courtesy. But because of the single bathroom, we have to relocate for “6 to 8 weeks.”

The good news is that we can stay at the house my parents left me, so I’ll have lots of time to finish sorting and organizing their stuff for donation, sale, recycling, keeping, or the hardest one, disposal. I still think of it as their stuff, but technically, it’s my stuff. Hard to wrap my brain around that…

The bad news is that we’ll be an hour away from “home,” which could be worse, and there is currently no internet or cable at the house that was my parent’s.

The good news is that apparently I can transfer my internet and cable temporarily. We’ll see. I’ll be crossing my fingers.

Going through my parents’ stuff  will be my job for the next two months. That’s how I’m going to approach it because I want to get it done.  It’s also going to be emotional. The good news is I’m “retired” so I have time. I get to make my  own schedule and rest when I need to. My plan is to journal about the experience and cut back on social media and other activities without guilt. I won’t be volunteering at the school on Wednesday mornings, so maybe I’ll get back into One-liner Wednesday because that’s fun and easy.

I’m a little nervous about vacating the house I’ve lived in for 30 years. It’s going to be an adjustment for the dogs, too. But it’s temporary. And when I come back home, I’ll have a new bathroom with a window and new walls painted elfin sage. That means goodbye to the familiar faces in the old paneling. This one looks like Admiral Akbar from Star Wars

It might sound weird, but you get used to these things. The good news is, I’ve put all the faces in my sketch book and will turn them into art that will not be in the bathroom.

In the end, it will all be good.