Home on the Road

When you own a home and possess some modicum of creativity, life is full of unending opportunities to spend money.  In my four years as a renter, and before that my years in the dorm, changing paint color, removing walls, and god forbid, installing anything was not an option.  Which pretty much meant that I could go a year without entering a Lowes or Home Despot and be fine. 

But, Freak and I pretty much spend most weekends and far too many evenings, getting things we need.  Power tools, a hundred different kinds of screws and nails, glues, cleaners, and the ever-spiraling requirements that stem from a single thought.  When we bought the house almost nine months ago, we had a fleeting notion of scraping some peeling paint of a few of the doors.  Two heat guns, a half-dozen scrapers, a can of citri-strip, some sandpaper, sanding sponges,  and some ambitiously selected paint, the peeling paint remains. 

However, the initial round of stripping lead to the need for : a shop broom, trash can, and large dust pan.  Then organization in the workshop became an issue.  A peg board, a bunch of hooks (it feels like we must have made one trip per hook), some shelves, a more powerful drill to install the shelves, a saw to cut the shelves, several level thingies, and a miter box.  Then while installing shelves, knocking down part of a wall seemed easy enough.  However after the bashing and crashing, we needed a reciprocating saw to clean it all up.  And paint.  And trim, because you know, you can't leave the edges exposed.

We also own several tools for the basement remodel-in-progress upon which no progress has been made aside from laying out our over ambitious plans.  We own carpet shears and carpet pullers.  We have light fixtures in boxes, and the electrical doo-dads needed to keep oneself from electrocuting oneself to death when playing with wires. 

So, yeah, they pretty much know us by name at the three hardware stores in town.  Nights that aren't spent wandering the aisles at Lowes and Home Despot being seduced by words like volts and versatile (we're a sucker for words that start with "v") are spent at Pet Smart attempting to make up all the time we spend on house projects to our animals.  It's a toss up whether the animals or the house is a bigger money pit. 

Relaxation is a foreign word around here.  We talk about how much we need it, but achieving it always seems a bit out of reach. 

So, when I discovered this site last night, I thought to myself: "Hey, we could totally do that."  Cause, we spend 365 days in the car anyway, but imagine how awesome it would be to not have an agenda or a to-do list? Yeah, I could totally do that.

Comments

[Day]

Oh Wavy I so LOVE that site you found! Could you imagine? I mean, after what they've been through, a one year road trip is probably just the thing. And yeah, why don't more of us think of doing something so - I don't know- carefree? Life almost demands it. I'm so with you on this.

[chenoah]

I can SO relate! Our weekends involve at least one stop at Loews or Home Despot. But then, we usually get some time in at Half Price Books, too. Oh yeah, life in the fast lane!
Thanks very much for your kind words of encouragement on my blog today!