Gratitude Tuesday

I have some things to be grateful for today ~

The car that-almost-ran-out-of-oil is still on the road. Monday morning, with my hat in my hand, I introduced myself to the new mechanic. I hope I will not always be known as the woman who-let-her-oil-light-come-on. The first thing he asked was if the engine was making funny noises. No, it wasn't. That's a good thing. He said something about how they'd seen worse, which made me feel a tiny bit better. There were no leaks found, so it would seem that the car likes oil - who knew? We/I need to be more diligent about getting regular oil changes, and the car needs two tires and a front-end alignment. I can do that! And as is my custom after any car of mine has been through a trauma, I wipe down the steering wheel and dashboard to let her, in this case Loretta, know that I really do care. I am grateful and have uttered many "thank you's" to the powers-that-be.

On Sunday I spent the day at my daughter's house. That just sounds good...my daughter's house. We had a project to start and, as with any project I start, things took much longer than planned. The goal was to take the knobs off an eight-drawer dresser, prime the drawer fronts and dresser, and paint the first coat (maybe). Well, four of the knobs would not come off...due to the carpenter's glue that was applied to the knobs to keep them from turning when that sounded like a good idea because the dresser would always be that color anyway. This is when the day really started to get good ~ my daughter and I figured out how to remove the knobs, all by ourselves, with tools. Yes, we did. We wound up sawing through the wood knob and breaking it into pieces so the wood could be pryed off the screw and the screw could be removed. Then we applied gooey primer - good primer because it covers all ills, but because it is good primer it gets gooey in the can. The fix for that is a light sanding before the first coat of paint, and that's an easy fix. Hopefully there will be a photo posted here later in the week of a freshly painted dresser, which will be adorned with ceramic knobs. I am grateful for the time with my daughter, working and talking and sharing and cooking.

Early Saturday morning Ken and I headed to Home Depot to pick up what we needed to stain the deck and paint the railing over the holiday week-end. Remember what I shared earlier? Yep, any project I start takes much longer than planned. This time Ken's contribution was the purchase of a power washer. Now this man has wanted a power washer for years, before he had anything that needed to be washed with power. He saw his chance, made his case for how easy it would be to prep the deck for stain, and I caved. Then I asked if he could also use it to prep the railing for paint, and he enthusiastically answered yes. It did work, but the wood takes 48 hours to completely dry before the application of the new finish. The work on Saturday pretty much shut down the project until Monday, which is when I primed the bare spots on the railing. Today I can start painting with a new primer-and-paint-in-one product that I found. That work-saving step is the silver lining to this cloud of endless railing to paint, and for that I am grateful. With luck, and continued good weather, I will have a photo of the newly painted railing to post by the week-end...

...which will only happen if I get started today....