I revisited my blog for the first time in over a year. I could tell you the exact amount of time it has been, but actually calculating that out would make me feel like even more of a loser than typing "over a year," so I won't bother with the math. Besides, math isn't my strongest subject. Procrastinating is my strongest subject, which leads me to my latest laundry list of home updates.
The pool. Remember the pool? Well, I'm going to need for you to forget about the pool. The pool is dead to me, just as it should be to you. Here's the thing about a pool....they are a pain in the ass. You heard me. Yes, this is the same girl that loves swimming more than most things on the planet. Having your own pool is a drag. After catching mating frogs, skimming dead mice, and being constantly on the lookout for snakes that decided to backstroke on a warm summer day, I made the decision to get rid of the pool. I'm no slave to a body of water that I use once a year! I won't do it, I tell you. I WON'T do it. (sobs and teeth gnashing)
I would invite you over to see the process, but honestly, it's not pretty. The guys started work this week by tearing down the little pool shed that hid the pump and filter, busting up a stupid curb that the former owners put in for no apparent reason, and also tearing down the fake well. "Why get rid of the fake well?" you might ask. Because it was dumb and fake and falling apart. That's why. It was harshing my mellow, jamming up my backyard flow, and creeping me out with the number of dead lizards that met an early grave by falling in the fake well and being unable to climb back out.
Needless to say, my backyard currently looks like a bombed out city on the edge of a refugee camp of sorrow and despair. They jack hammered a hole in the bottom of the pool for drainage, and threw the debris from the well and the shed into the pool. Not only can you see the gaping hole, but you can also see about a foot worth of rubble. Yes....my yard has rubble...in the pool, beside the pool, near the pool. Rubble for as far as the eye can see. I know you're jealous. You have every right to be because I have RUBBLE and well, you probably don't.
Fortunately, the pool killers will be coming back later this week and filling in the rest of the pool with dirt. Dirt is prettier than rubble. They will also grade part of the yard, fix part of a fence, and haul all the debris away that isn't appropriate for pool filling. I am also taking part of the area that was pool and making a small cement pond with a waterfall. That's right, I am completely changing my landscaping and adding a pond because my dogs will like a pond. Don't you dare laugh, or all three dogs will drive to your house and drop off a load of rubble.
We might have rubble, but we also have central air and heat. By far the coolest thing I have done at the house (literally) in the past year is to put in a heat pump. Central air and heat, I can't quit you. No more piecemeal cooling apparatuses (and that should totally be apparati in my world of English grammar). A heat pump makes Allison a very happy camper. I recommend heating and cooling for all of you. Seriously.
Which leads me to the next project....flooring. Remember when I ripped out all the carpet in my bedroom after the great flood of 2011? And then remember how I moved my bed into the living room for a short while thinking I would slap a new floor down in a jiffy, then said to heck with it and moved the bed back to the concrete slab in my bedroom? Well, you will be happy to know that I still haven't put down new flooring in the bedroom. Not only have I not put down new flooring in the bedroom, but I also ripped out carpet and busted up tile in the "guest" portion of the house. Yeah....I guess the "flooring update" wasn't really an update after all since most would assume that a "flooring update" meant I actually had a professional come and put some kind of floor down. Really, the slab ain't half bad. It's easy to clean, for those people that believe in cleaning, and it's free to keep living on the slab. I like free.
In other news, I think I am just about in the mood to paint the inside of my house. The only things holding me back are: time, the fact that I hate painting, the fact that I don't know how to decorate so I will probably pick insane paint colors, the last remaining shreds of wallpaper borders in the dining room that I don't want to take down because removing wallpaper is like rolling around on broken glass soaked in lemon juice, and the fact that there are some annoying tiles on the kitchen walls that I will want to remove and replace before repainting the kitchen.
Honestly, I can't remove tiles from the kitchen back splash at this juncture because that could end up being another thing I demolish here without any real plans to replace them. Let's face it, people. I am Allison the Destroyer, not Allison the DIY Home Makeover Maven. Maybe 2 or 3 or 5 years from now I will be writing on this blog about how I have almost torn down the entire house and the dogs and I are living in a tent on the concrete slab with central air from our heat pump. It will be like the show "Hoarders: Buried Alive" only in reverse. I NEED AN INTERVENTION! Or to win the lottery, affording me the budget to hire lots of minions to do all the things around here that I could do myself if I weren't so busy procrastinating. Not that I don't like you all, but honestly, I would rather win the lottery than to show up one evening with all of my friends sitting in the living room saying "Allison, we are all here because we love you."
That was all a rather long way of saying I haven't painted inside the house yet because I don't want to have an intervention.
So, those are my general homeowner updates. My list of things to do is still insanely long. If you bought a 12 pack of double roll Charmin, unrolled all the rolls and taped them together into one ginormously long piece of paper, you might have enough room to write my entire to-do list, especially if you write small. Anyone out there like to paint? Feel free to come over and spend some time at the house.
