The Priorities of Being a Homeowner

The thing with being a homeowner is that it changes your priorities in life.

Just over two years ago, I moved into my house. I’d lived in apartments before and was ready to have something that was actually mine. It has been a joy having the freedom to do what I want whether it be painting, ripping up a floor and replacing it as well as having a garden fit for dogs and for growing vegetables.

It’s just that this has now become my life. I’m not complaining, trust me. I rather love my life. When I lived in an apartment, it was much easier to find time to go to my parents’ for the weekend or take off and fly to L.A. to visit. Nowadays, it’s not that easy because there’s always something to do at home.

I don’t mind. I’ve actually got to the point where I like mowing. If you read back over the blogs I wrote when I first moved into the house and had to start mowing, you’ll see this is quite a departure. I find it slightly peculiar that I now take a weird sort of pride in making sure my lawn looks tidy and looked after. I like to drive home and see my tidy lawn and how it contrasts with Mr. Enormous Trouser’s unkempt one. I find it therapeutic to pull out the mower and cut the lawn.

I especially like the feeling I have after the grass is cut and I can sit on my patio, drinking a beer and admiring how nice it looks while the pups roll in the clippings. Why the like to roll in the clippings, I do not know. When the grass is dry, it’s not so bad. When it’s wet, it makes a mess. It’s most annoying when I give the girls a bath and they immediately run outside and roll in the grass clippings.

If it’s not mowing, it’s laundry. I have to admit, after years of having to pump quarters into machines, including the college years, I’m still thankful that I have my own washer and dryer and that if I forget my clothes in the washer, there’s no one to dump them out on the floor. Since the pups are afraid of the laundry area due to the fact that I accidentally knocked a laundry basket on the floor, narrowly missing them, I highly doubt they’re likely to dump my clothes out. Also, they have no thumbs. This would make it difficult.

There’s also the small things such as remembering on Wednesdays that Rumpke come the next day so I should have my rubbish out by the curb. This is actually pretty easy to remember because my neighbours remind me by putting out their own rubbish. Also, confession time, the pups and I enjoy our Wednesday evening walks because we’re nosy and it’s quite fun to see the boxes and things by the curb and know who bought a new TV, who has a new baby and who got a new puppy. Yes, we’re nosy. I prefer to think of it as “studying humans” in order to be a more effective writer. Ok, fine…it is nosy and probably a little weird but I think I get it from my grandmother.

It’s nice to have the freedom to decide that I want to have DirecTV without having to find out from a landlord whether I’m allowed a dish or not. It’s nice to have dogs without having to pay a deposit for them. It’s nice to decide that I’m fed up with the window coverings and I can change them without having to worry about storing the old ones to put back up when I move out.

Of course, the flip side to having all this freedom is when you have a period of time where you have termites, your dryer dies and your fridge dies in the same week, it’s expensive. When the air conditioning goes out, it’s my responsibility to get it fixed. I have to be the one who’s there to let repairmen into my house because it’s my responsibility.

It’s an up and down journey that has become my life. I’ve somehow transitioned from someone who will splurge on a pair of Vans shoes to someone who’d rather buy a new side table for my Tuscan room. I price the cost of a new bathroom when I go in Home Depot. I get excited by the Lowes advertisement to see what’s on special.

You get it. I just did. It wasn’t until I was sitting at work thinking of all the things I had to do this evening when I realized that they’re things I have to do because I own my house. I don’t mind one little bit but it occurred to me that my life has become rather quiet and peaceful throughout the years. I don’t go out as much after work because I’d rather come home to the dogs, kick of my shoes and curl up with a good book in the sanctity of my Tuscan room.

I don’t know if this makes me boring or not. It probably does. Yet there’s a strange peace in finding a life where being able to own my own grill and use it is a little bit of a delight and where I can sit out on my patio, surrounded by sunflowers and herbs that I planted and know that this little corner of the world is all mine.

Whether it’s exciting or not is irrelevant. It is exciting to me, even in the quietness of the life I have. I think that’s what really matters. And I think the dogs would agree.

Happy Thursday!

A Tile-Filled Weekend...

This was a very productive weekend for me.

Well, I suppose I should say that if you consider spending a total of 15 hours on your hands and knees pulling up vinyl tile productive.

It's a weird form of productivity. I think it's all about goals. In the grand scheme of things, peeling up old vinyl tile piece by tiny piece does not seem like it's really that significant. However, there were 384 tiles altogether.

You might wonder how I know that but, well, I did some math and I don't think I'm far off. Also, the room is 384 square feet. The tiles were one foot square each. The maths isn't THAT hard.

However, after I spent my entire day on Saturday peeling up tiles, the last couple of hours on a Sunday where I could actually count the last few remaining pieces of evilness seemed like a triumph. By the time I got to that very last tile, I had found a new definition of the word "overjoyed."

My tools were the following: A tile scraper, my Wonderbar, knee pads and gloves.

I have to admit, last weekend was WAY more fun. I'd much rather have been eating at Babbo that eating the microwave Lean Gourmet pizza for dinner that I had on Saturday night.

Still, I triumphed. The evil old vinyl tile is gone and I have a clean, even concrete floor upon which I can lay my new tiles. As I said, in the grand scheme of things it may not seem like much but, well, to me, I may as well have conquered Mt. Everest.

As a result of my tile prying, I have a grand total of 9 blisters on my hands. I have bruised knees and an aching back. I also feel slightly awesome because, well, I set my mind to do it and I did it.

I feel a little bad for the dogs though. Many times, Sookie tried to climb into my lap because she wanted a cuddle and since I was just sitting on the floor, why shouldn't she climb into my lap? It was nice to have a cuddle but, unfortunately, it wasn't condusive to tile prying.

It's sad, really. Last weekend, I spent a wonderful three days wandering around Manhattan with my good friend, eating good food and enjoying nice weather. This weekend, I enjoyed 93 degree heat and quick food while spending almost the entire weekend in my Tuscan room.

On the bright side, I do feel quite pleased that I did it by myself. I also learned a lot about vinyl tiles. I also feel that now that I've stripped that room down to its bare bones, it's really my room and it's really my project.

On the downside, I didn't do very much else this weekend. Next weekend will be dedicated to putting down new vinyl tiles. I'm hoping that if I ever move and the person who buys this house doesn't like my tiles, they won't have quite so hard of a time pulling them up as I did.

Being a homeowner definitely leads you to do some interesting things, that I will say. Nevertheless, with a weekend like last to fuel me, I really am not complaining. A project like that leads to plenty of meditative thinking because there's not much else to do while prying tiles. I learned that a) I'm a little obsessed with HBO's "Game of Thrones," b) I can't wait for "True Blood" to come back and c) I really should edit some of my earlier novels and think about self-publishing them...

There was a lot of other thoughts too but most of them were about food which, really, isn't a surprise, is it?

Now, on Sunday evening, my aching back and tired bones are ready to relax for a couple of hours before its back to work tomorrow. In a way, it actually feels nice to know I worked hard today.

If only I didn't have to work hard tomorrow too...ah well, you can't have everything! :)

Thanks, as always, for reading and Happy Monday!

Death of a Refridgerator

It’s official. My refrigerator and freezer passed away sometime between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. yesterday.

I’m not actually sure of the time of death but based on my rather limited CSI abilities, the fact that my food in the freezer was still cool but mostly defrosted leads me to think it had been out most of the day. Also, my fridge was still cool-ish when I got home from my parents around 7 p.m.

Either way, my fridge has hummed itself to wherever it is that fridges go when they die. It was a good fridge. It was prone to making rather odd noises at times. It buzzed very loudly most of the time. However, it kept things cold and did the job and I suppose you can’t really ask more of a fridge, can you?

Of course, while I mourn the loss of my fridge, most of the loss is born of inconvenience rather than a strong personal connection with the fridge itself. This is what happens when you move into a house and the fridge is already there. It’s useful and I was glad I had a fridge but it never felt like my fridge, per se. Also, when I moved in, it was still quite full of things the previous homeowner had left behind so I had a lot of cleaning to do. While this provided a bond of sorts with my fridge, it never felt new because it was full of half-eaten lunch meat and such when I first ‘met’ it.

I’m very lucky. I didn’t lose everything in my fridge and freezer. While I lost a lot of things, including a collection of homemade soups I’d put in the freezer, some things were salvageable. Also, I have a little chest freezer in the garage so what could be saved went in there. For the fridge’s part, I’m temporarily using my little wine fridge as a fridge-fridge. It doesn’t get super cold but it’s cold enough to keep my food safe and uncontaminated.

I’m trying to look on the bright side of all this which is a bit of a challenge because firstly, it’s Monday and I’m not fond of Mondays as my regular blog readers will know. Secondly, it’s a very, very wet Monday. The lake in my back garden has just become even lake-ier and when you walk on the grass even where there’s no puddles, there’s enough water that it seeps up over your shoes. Finally, this has been a rather cruddy month for me as a homeowner.

I tried to smile through the termites. After all, I caught them before the damage was severe and they could tell all their friends that my house was free for the eatin’. I tried to laugh at the lawnmower. After all the hot-metal-piston-thingy didn’t hit me in the head, my neighbour loaned me his mower and I was able to get a new mower with no trouble. I’m trying to smile about the fridge. On the plus side, I get a shiny new appliance out of the deal.

On the negative side, it’s adding up financially. Certainly, I’d probably want a new fridge eventually but there’s a big difference between wanting a new one and needing one. Nowadays, fridges are essential. I’m sure there are arguments against that statement but unless you’re Amish and don’t believe in electricity, it’s rather hard to live without a fridge. I’m not really sure how the Amish do it, honestly. It’s not that I even like my beverages that cold. It’s more that I like my food to be uncontaminated by bacteria and keeping it cold prevents that. Also, it’s a great money-saver for a single person- it’s hard to find single-serving portions of things and it’s usually more economical to buy a package of chicken and then split it in two or three before I freeze it.

Still, I’m fortunate that I changed jobs in October. If I’d been on my old salary without the beautiful benefit of a commission check once a month, I’d be completely and utterly panicked and stressed. Fortunately, I was raised to save rather than spend when I have a little extra cash (thanks, Mum!) and so the fridge won’t hurt as much as it would have if I was living paycheck to paycheck.

It still sucks though. I’m just saying that because it feels good to say it. It sucks. That’s all there is to it. I know it’s easily fixable and in the grand scheme of things, far worse things could happen but, well, I just want to say it. I spend much time trying not to whine and complain because friends and people I know always have it worse: sick parents, husbands, spouses….overworking, being stressed, etc. but sometimes, I just have to take five minutes and let myself feel a teeny bit sorry for myself that I have to buy a new fridge and a lawnmower and there are termite holes all over my windowsill.

I feel better already. Like I said before, my fridge situation is definitely not the end of the world. I’m not going to sit there and whine, “Why is my house against me?” when, really, it’s not. To quote “Phantom of the Opera” (the musical): “These things do ‘appen.”

Of course, just like my air conditioning woes last summer, the death of my ceiling fan and the broken kitchen sink, these things do seem to ‘appen all around the same time and I sort of wish they’d spread themselves out but, well, hopefully this will be the last ‘appening for a while.

If nothing else, April is almost over. I’m christening it “Anti-Homeowner Month.” Fingers crossed that May will be better.

At the very least, I’ll begin the month with a new fridge.

Rest in Peace fridge that belonged to the nice old lady who sold me my house. Thanks for keeping things cold and making a lot of noise while doing so. It was only when the silence of your hum was deafeningly loud that I realized I had lost you for good. May you enjoy your days of never having to cool anything again.

Happy Tuesday and thanks for reading (and letting me vent)!