Manual Labor

     This week I decided to paint the garage door, a tall square column by my front door and 2 metal lawn chairs.  I've been in my house nearly 20 years and have painted the door and post once, so I guess I shouldn't complain, but I'm going to.  Wednesday I spent a few hours scraping, sanding, bleaching and rinsing.  Oh, and unscrewing my house numbers, flag holder and welcome sign holder - in other words, doing the prep work.  I know some would find this all rewarding, but I thought it was a pain.  The next day I started painting at 10:30 and finished at 4:30.  I put on 2 coats of paint and ended up painting the vinyl trim and the bottom of my storm door which has erupted with some mysterious holes.  I have no idea if it's kosher to put latex exterior paint on vinyl, but I didn't care.  Unfortunately the bottom of the door is spanky white now in contrast to the dirty white of the rest of the door, but before I paint the entire door, I'm going to see how the painted part puts up with winter.  The metal chairs were white and had begun sporting rusty spots as a result of a few straight line wind episodes hurling them across the yard.  I painted them gray.
        When I was younger I enjoyed this kind of work and felt really accomplished when I'd complete a job like this.  True, everything looks much better (except the door, but it's in experiment mode.)  My biggest reward, in contrast to past painting projects, was when I remembered I won't be painting my family room and guest bathroom myself because for the second time in my life I have hired a painter to do the job.  I had been feeling somewhat guilty for spending the money even though I had a Groupon to cover part of it, but that's over.  This 60-year-old bod is no longer friends with manual labor.  Not fun.  No no no.

  
This is not a picture of me.  This is a picture of how I'd like to be when I paint. 

 I did get to celebrate completion of the task by having a great dinner at my mom's (she's 86 and still cooks dinners for us.)  Both of my nieces were there, which is a treat as one goes to school in Iowa and the other lives in Washington.  If only my baby could have been there too, but she was busy in Cambridge.  I guess I shouldn't call her a baby anymore since she is almost 23 now, but you know how moms are.  We NEVER let go.