A Meat, Potatoes and Carrots Kind of Week

Bright and early Wednesday morning I had three guys walking around on top of my roof. The dog didn’t like it. I, on the other hand, was thrilled. They were up there to kill the mold that made the roof look old and worn out with black streaks in the valleys and other places the sun doesn’t like. It was a cheap process---$325. While they were up there they tarred down a shingle that was dislodged in a wind storm last spring and was flopping back and forth. I gave the company owner a $50 tip and told him in earshot of his young workers that I wanted him to take the guys out to lunch for fixing the shingle. Fifty dollars was a bargain compared to what it would have cost to have a roofer come out to fix it, if you could get one to come out for a single shingle. I was a happy camper.

That was the ‘potatoes’ in my week, now on to the ‘meat’---my first time mixing paint on a palette in over seventeen years. The instructor has a stand-alone, two story art studio that looks like a grown-up version of a miniature house for fairies in a forest. She’s a ten year widow and her second husband built it for her. How cool is that! Her lake side yard was private with massive trees and the weather was perfect so three of us sat out on her deck sketching for the first hour, then we changed to painting. The third person was one of my friends from the Gathering Girls. B.L. had not painted in a number of years either but she was bolder getting started and was the first to get her paints out while I was being a Nervous Nelly dragging my feet.

Did I enjoyed the class? The answer is yes and no. The ‘yes’ part was the setting was perfect for what we were doing, the company and conversation was good and I actually started thinking like an artist again. But B.L. and I both agreed afterward that the instructor is not going be a good teacher even though she has a degree from one of the most prestigious art school in the country. For example, she took the brushes out of our hands and painted on our works herself to demonstrate what she thought we should do---painted way too long, to be exact. "Show, NOT do for" was the motto I remember from the hallowed halls of good teaching. B.L. was more generous than me when she said, “Some people can do but not teach” while I thought the large display of her work hanging in the studio was all over the map---many excellent pieces but others not so much. From her online presence, I didn't expect that. And B.L. and I were both shocked when it was time to pay and we found out the price she quoted in an email was per hour, not per class. We decided we’d go back one more time---armed with questions and issues we think she can help us with---then we’ll find a nice way to back out gracefully from continuing the classes, and maybe try to get-together on our own to paint to keep us inspired. 

After the class was over I followed B.L. to a near-by small town in a farming community where we had a leisurely dinner and a serious conversation followed by ice cream sundaes. Everything is better with ice cream sundaes. A Celtic band had just started a free concert across the park from the ice cream shop, so off we went. B.L. jokes that she’s on the go so much she practically lives in her car and she produced two folding chairs from her ‘magical red box’ and we enjoyed most of the concert before I was yawning and we left. It had been a long day and Levi was glad to see me back home again. I hit the bed at 9:30 like a five year old and the next day I unpacked my car of its art supplies, discarded the painting I began in class and started another. And that fact, after all these years of not painting, made the class worthwhile. 

Friday was the carrots in my week. It was time for my monthly cleaning girl to show up. I haven’t written about her since the time I devoted an entire blog to her titled Babies and Broken Promises. She had given up a newborn baby girl to an open adoption and the adoptive parents---back then---were not holding up their end of the bargain of allowing a three hour visit every three months and she was distraught beyond comforting. According to my cleaner, it’s all been ironed out and visits are back on track, but get this: The adoptive parents are paying her to clean their house during the resumed visits. I honestly don’t know what to think about that. What I do know for sure is that I’m glad my problems are not the sort that keep my emotions spinning like pinwheels in the winds. “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” Yup, there are always people out there dealing with weighty issues worse than our own. ©

After Treatment

Before Mold Removed

Hats, Contractors and More Hats

My Red Hat Society Chapter will be fourteen years old this fall and I was a founding member but two years later I had to drop out because I couldn’t leave my wheelchair bound husband alone for more than two hours and that didn’t mesh well with the out-of-town outings the group was doing. Fast forward to after Don passed away and I found my way back into the group and to this week when I took part in a long standing yearly event…helping the residents of our adopted nursing home become honorary members of our chapter. We bring red visors and bling and marry the visors and bling of their choosing together using our trusty glue guns. Cookies and punch are part of the deal. We also fill holiday goodie bags for all the residents three times a year, do a cupcake and slow motion bingo party in the fall and we have volunteers who rotate memorabilia in and out of a showcase. I’ve never volunteered to do that because, I guess, I’m too picky (or selfish) about where I leave my antiques and collectibles.

Last year I felt too old to be at our visor party, like I could easily be mistaken for one of the resident and as the event got closer this year I gave myself a good scolding lest negativity found a comfortable chair inside my head again. It worked. I went knowing I could do this! I could smile at the guy who took ten cookies off the sugar-free tray but still wanted more when I was passing around the regular cookies. I could be exasperated with the woman who wanted to hoard the whole bag of stick-on bling before it could be passed around to the others. I could laugh at the fact that my chapter sisters all were required to wear rubber gloves to set up the cookie trays but when it came time to pass them out half the residents mauled a number of cookies before making their final choices. As I drove home, I wondered which one I’d be in the future---the cookie hoarder or the bling hoarder? Either way, I hope I’m good natured about it like the guy was. He knew he was doing wrong but he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. The woman was a bit of a bitch. If she’d had a fly swatter handy I would have gotten smacked when I got near her.

I got my first estimate on the cost of replacing my roof. It was from the company that did my neighbor’s in one day and they called me cold canvasing the neighborhood. I read through 200 online reviews after making the appointment, most were happy but there were 4-5 people complaining that the company wouldn’t do an estimate without husbands being present with their wives. That explained why the sales rep making the appointment made a point of saying twice, “I’ll see you AND Levi at 2:00.” On my outgoing phone message I say, “You have reached Jean and Levi…” After Don died, I didn’t want my message to give away the fact that I was living alone, so I added the dog’s name when I took my husband’s off the message. The company must have called once when I wasn’t home and assumed Levi was my husband.

After I introduced the guy to my Might Schnauzer the look on his face was priceless and I was prepared for the little-woman-can’t-understand-estimates treatment. I didn’t get it but he did ask if I was related to---and he named my brother. “Yes!” I replied. “How do you know him?” “We did his roof last year. Let’s call him,” he said as he pulled my brother’s contact information up on his phone and put it on speaker. Thankfully, my brother wasn’t home because the last thing I wanted to do is listen to two guys "help me" decide if I should spend $14,400 on a new roof. I am woman. I make my own decisions thank you very much! I decided that what looked like gender bias in the reviews was just the company’s awkwardness in wanting all the legal home owners present so they don’t have to do their presentation twice. Still…. The company has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and while I was prepared not to be won over by the sales pitch, I was impressed enough to keep them in the running. 

Yesterday I woke up with snow on the ground but spring supposedly will be here on the weekend. In the meantime, I packed up my knitting in hopes that will signal Mother Nature that’s it’s time to get her tail in gear and bring us some warm weather and tulips. In the past few months I’ve made twenty-eight hats for my family---for next Christmas---although there are four I might do over if I still don’t like them in the fall. My mom made hats for everyone every year and I never appreciated her efforts until I tackled the job this year. I used my mom’s looms and the hats might be a tad out of fashion but with their double thickness they are warmer than bread in a toaster. Darn, now I wish I had some bread in the house! I haven’t had carbs in so long I’m dreaming about them. ©

 

 

 

The set I don't like.