So, during one of my son’s telehealth speech therapy sessions, we found that he was a lot happier outside in our screened in porch. Of course, I decided to turn it into an outdoor classroom IMMEDIATELY. Because my biggest special interest is my son, like you might imagine.
But our sweet little screened in porch was being held together by vines, hole ridden netting, and rust. So honestly, I’ve been working non-stop for the last four days, and the following things have happened.
In no particular order, because my brain won’t function in any particular order.
-I bought a bee house to pull the carpenter bees away from my porch
-The carpenter bees decided that my paltry little house was insufficient and continued to eat my big one.
-I punted one bee coming at me with my boot. It felt like an angry little shuttlecock.
-While changing the old exposed outlet covers to proper outdoor outlets covers, discovered a wiring problem that resulted in a small fire. Immediately shut off the power.
-No, first screamed obscenities while stamping out said fire with my glove. Then shut off the power. First, then.
-Murdered a garden hose trying to remove it from my old tap.
-Murdered a second garden hose when I neglected to clean off the sediment from the old tap.
-Cleaned off the sediment, and attached my favorite, most fancy hose yet. Turned on the tap to have water gush out of the aluminum siding in several places.
-Removed aluminum siding to fix trillion year old tap and discovered that my house used to be pink (YAY!)
-Decided to remove all the siding in just the screened in porch. Found what was holding it together was spiders, mold, and a wretched smell.
-Cut my hand on a sharp aluminum edge. Used my son’s mickey bandaids, which has caused him to try and steal them from my hand every time he sees my wound.
-Made watercolor style drop cloth curtains to save some money and return some of the lattice I planned to use for privacy. (The new tap and tools for dealing with the siding were busting my budget. It’s apparently a very fancy tap. Also, I’ve bought like three cans of liquid wrench to deal with all the rusted bolts and screws.)
-Fixed storm door that kept crashing open at the slightest breeze and causing my sensory issues to flare.
-Re-listened to the Raven Boys series read by Will Patton. His voice is delicious.
-Digged a drainage ditch in the hardest clay I’ve seen since I lived in Georgia, all to stop wood rot. So not even pretty.
-Hauled rocks from the garage to the porch, for said drainage ditch, thinking of greek mythology characters.
-Bent my machete on a bunch of vines, but felt like a total badass for like two seconds. Used my much less badass pruning knife to take out the rest.
-Dug up old rocks and bricks in my backyard to use in the drainage ditch, hoping I wouldn’t unearth a dead pet or anything. There were some really pretty rocks, I would have considered them tombstone worthy. There was no pet cemetery though.
-Spray painted an old chandelier for a planter.
-Had a waterballoon fight with my son to make him happy.
And now I am currently waiting for the liquid wrench to dissolve the corrosion around a pipe that is stuck, with my water off, trying not to loose my mind.
holly loves john 